Rwanda

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Since 1989, we’ve been improving the quality of health care for Rwandans.

  • More than 481,000 men and boys have received voluntary medical male circumcision services, thereby benefiting from this procedure’s protective effect against HIV infection.
  • Introduction of postpartum family planning (PPFP) services in 10 districts led to the Rwandan Ministry of Health adopting and prioritizing PPFP in all districts.
  • The use of data “dashboards” at health care facilities has led to improvements in quality of care and increased access to services. At one Jhpiego-supported facility in Nyaruguru District, for example, this innovation led to a 50% increase in the number of pregnant women attending all four recommended antenatal care visits.
  • Jhpiego provided technical support to the Ministry of Health’s Malaria and Other Parasitic Diseases Division to conduct a high-level malaria program review to develop recommendations and identify priority areas for the Malaria Strategic Plan 2020–2025.

Our Work in Rwanda

Impact Malaria is a global project of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative to reduce mortality and morbidity caused by malaria. Implemented by a consortium of organizations led by PSI, the project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. In close collaboration with Rwanda’s National Malaria Control Program, other sections of the Ministry of Health and various implementing partners, Impact Malaria is designed to improve malaria service delivery via the following objectives: 1) improve the quality of and access to malaria case management and prevention of malaria in pregnancy; 2) improve the quality of and access to other malaria drug-based approaches and provide support to pilot/scale up newer malaria drug-based approaches; and 3) provide global technical leadership, support operational research and advance program learning.

With funding from Belgian development agency Enabel, Jhpiego is implementing a three-year project targeting seven health districts. The project’s objective is to ensure accessible, evidence-based, improved and innovative maternal, neonatal, child, sexual and reproductive health services in these districts. In addition, the project seeks to increase citizens’ participation and engagement in development in alignment with the current national Health Sector Strategic Plan 4.

With funding from the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) through a Catalytic Opportunity Fund grant, Jhpiego is working to scale up hormonal IUD services in Rwanda. This fund is administered by CHAI and managed by the Hormonal IUD Access Group with the goal of supporting catalytic work to drive scale-up of hormonal IUDs in focus countries. In Rwanda, Jhpiego is developing health care provider skills and knowledge related to hormonal IUD services during pre-service education to prepare future nurses and midwives as critical providers of family planning services in Rwanda. Jhpiego is also ensuring that nurses and midwives who are currently undergoing pre-service education acquire competencies to expand counseling and service provision to include hormonal IUD as they complete their classroom and skills-based clinical training.

With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jhpiego is conducting a health facility survey in Rwanda with the goal of improving malaria case management. In partnership with the Malaria and Other Parasitic Diseases Division of the Government of Rwanda, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jhpiego is designing and implementing the study, which will measure progress made in outpatient malaria case management against national malaria treatment guidelines. Data from this study will benefit Rwanda’s national malaria control program by: informing the development of malaria case management training and supervision strategies; providing data on which antimalarial and rapid diagnostic tests are ideal for the country; and characterizing the degree to which routine health facility data reflect the true malaria burden.

Jhpiego is providing technical assistance to support event-based surveillance in Rwanda to carry out a range of complex epidemiologic and surveillance activities associated with event-based surveillance systems and alert and response operations at Rwanda Biomedical Center. This work is funded by the CDC Foundation.