Rwanda and Unitaid to bring health innovations to those in need

Rwanda’s Ministry of Health and Unitaid will collaborate to bring better and more affordable health solutions to the people of Rwanda and beyond.

The First Lady of Rwanda, H.E. Mrs. Jeannette Kagame, and Unitaid Executive Director Mr. Lelio Marmora signed the memorandum of understanding.

“Rwanda is a leading early adopter of innovation. Unitaid is delighted to work with the country to bring resources, expertise and products that will improve the lives of people in Rwanda,” Mr. Marmora said.

The agreement recognizes Rwanda as a “champion of innovation acceleration in health” and provides a framework for the country to continue working closely with Unitaid to increase access to affordable and effective health innovations that tackle the most pressing public health problems.

Unitaid grants are directly improving Rwanda’s health landscape through projects inside the country, and indirectly, through many other projects that develop health innovations and create the conditions for them to be widely introduced.

Examples of how Rwanda and Unitaid are collaborating directly:

• Unitaid’s project with Innovative Vector Control Consortium is bringing new-generation bed nets and insecticides to Rwanda’s fight against malaria. In 2018 alone, more than 800,000 Rwandans were protected with the new insecticides, including nearly 12,000 pregnant women and 118,000 children under five. Introduced at full scale, the new insecticides could avert more than 2 million cases of malaria in Rwanda between 2020 and 2024.
• Unitaid’s project with Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation was the first to introduce integrated point-of-care early infant HIV diagnosis into national laboratory networks in Rwanda. The project allowed thousands of HIV-exposed infants to be tested, initiating lifesaving treatment within two days for 98 percent of those who tested positive.

Original source: Unitaid
Published on 16 July 2019