The Atlantic: One of the World's Tiniest, Poorest Countries Is Redefining HIV Care

In the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s poorest region, has made enormous strides in the fight against HIV. There are now more than 7.5 million people receiving antiretroviral therapy, 150 times as many as a decade ago. Medications have become more effective and easier to take, and they are now combined so that many patients take as little as one pill a day. HIV testing has become more widely available, and we are detecting the virus at earlier stages before too much damage is done.

With World AIDS Day upon us, however, it is important to keep in mind that the needs in this part of the world are still grim. The U.N. estimates that only 45 percent of pregnant women are tested for HIV and only 35 percent of infants born to mothers with HIV are tested for the virus on time. Treatment for children and adolescents lags dramatically behind that of adults. Around the world, 1.7 million people die of the disease every year. Unfortunately, the UNAIDS goal of 15 million people on treatment by 2015 seems a long way off, and HIV vaccines and “cures” remain in early investigatory phases.

Yet in Rwanda, where just 20 years ago a genocide claimed approximately 1 million lives, the government has transformed HIV care for the poor by redefining the standards for successful treatment. More than three decades into the epidemic, many national and international agencies are still counting the basics—how many people get infected, how many people receive medication, how many patients die. Success in Rwanda, meanwhile, is measured not in the number remaining alive, but rather in how many are actually able to take their medications as directed and suppress the virus in their bodies to a level where it is essentially non-existent. In Rwanda, success is achieved when people living with HIV can earn a living, support their family, raise their children, and care for their community no differently than their peers.

As a physician working for Partners in Health in Rwanda, I have witnessed the impact of this relentless approach to HIV care and treatment, and the stabilizing and uplifting impact it has had on the lives of Rwandans. Patients who would have previously been hospitalized with severe and end-stage complications of HIV are now coming for regular, preventive care. Families and communities previously devastated by the dual impact of insecurity and HIV are now thriving hubs for HIV prevention and treatment. I’ve come to realize that this tiny East African country may have large lessons to share with the global HIV movement.

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