Zonta efforts strengthen ebb of HIV transmission in Rwanda

 

Helping women in developing countries has been a passion of Zontians since the organization was founded in 1919. Today, Zonta's International Service Program continues to help women in developing countries improve their legal, political, economic, educational and health status. The International Service Program has provided training, education, health, sanitation, agricultural and micro-credit assistance to women, primarily through projects implemented by the agencies of the United Nations and other recognized nongovernmental organizations.
Since 2008, Zonta International has supported efforts to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Rwanda. The project is now at a critical turning point, with the government of Rwanda calling to eliminate MTCT of HIV in Rwanda by 2015, which would mean reaching the country’s target goal of a 2 percent transmission rate, less than the 5 percent set by other countries. The Zonta International Service Fund has pledged $1 million to this project, with funds raised through contributions from those interested in our mission of advancing the status of women.
Rwanda is one of the most vibrant and dynamic emerging democracies in Africa today. While the wounds of the 1994 genocide are still raw, the country has elaborated its vision for decentralizing authority, increasing the enrollment of girls (97 percent) and boys in school, reducing child mortality (70 deaths per 1,000 births) and electing the highest number of women to parliament (56.3 percent), while sustaining good economic growth. Despite its successes, Rwanda is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Half of the country’s 10.9 million people are children; 220,000 of whom are orphans due to AIDS, and 100,000 of whom live in child-headed households. More than 80 percent of Rwanda’s population lives in rural areas and depends on subsistence farming while land for cultivation is scarce.
In 2010, 3 percent of the population was HIV-positive, yet only 48 percent of young girls knew how HIV is transmitted. An estimated 19,000 children were living with HIV, with only 4,350 undergoing treatment. Through UNICEF’s support and the support of partners like Zonta International, services for prevention of MTCT are now available in 82 percent of Rwanda’s health facilities (up from 42 percent in 2005). In 2010, about 70 percent of all pregnant women could access HIV testing during pregnancy, with 81 percent of them testing together with their partners; and 78 percent of all HIV-positive pregnant women, and 74 percent of all infants born to HIV-positive mothers, received antiretroviral therapy for the prevention of MTCT in 2010.
This is Zonta’s third consecutive biennium of support for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Rwanda. Zonta International now has a unique opportunity to help win the war on HIV and eliminate MTCT in Rwanda by 2015. Effective programs focused on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV can virtually eliminate the spread of the virus to infants in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 90 percent of new pediatric HIV infections still occur. The first lady of Rwanda has called for elimination of new pediatric HIV infections in Rwanda by 2015, which means reducing the MTCT rate from about 16 percent in 2010 to less than 2 percent by 2015.
In line with Zonta’s work toward eliminating violence against women, the project also works toward that, too, by supporting the government in expansion of one-stop centers for the prevention of and response to domestic and gender-based violence in all five provinces of Rwanda. Contribute to government’s efforts to establish guidelines for multidisciplinary care (medical, legal and psychological) for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence to ensure that all survivors are treated according to set guidelines of quality care. Support data collection to establish evidence for domestic and gender-based violence and its connection to the transmission of HIV. Support national and community-level mobilization campaigns around the prevention of and response to domestic and gender-based violence, specifically focused on sexual violence against young girls, violence among couples where only one half of the couple is HIV-positive, and violence against women during pregnancy.