Rwanda News

Kigali, 18 April 2016 – On 04 April 2016, the Government of Rwanda with support from WHO and immunization partners made history as the first country in the African Region to introduce bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) in place of the trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (tOPV) into the schedule of the routine immunization programme for all children under the age of one.

Rwanda organized its biannual Integrated Mother and Child Health Week from 26th to 29th April 2016. The Mother and Child week is organized twice a year and serves as an opportunity to scalehealth services provision, particularly to the hard-to-reach, the unreached and the most vulnerable populations. The Mother and Child Health Week was combined with the African Vaccination Week.

Rwanda celebrated World Health Day on 29th May 2016 in an event organized by the Ministry of Health/Rwanda Biomedical Center and its partners, including WHO, with the theme “Scale-Up Non-Communicable Diseases Prevention, Strengthen Care, and Enhance Surveillance”. The national theme for World Health Day aligns with the global theme, “Beat Diabetes”, with a call to address the broader non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Kigali, 23rd August 2016 : The World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of Rwanda, organized at Kigali, Rwanda, a two days workshop, from 23rd to 24thAugust 2016, on Tobacco Taxation  in the African Region.

On November 13th and 14th, the newly built Kigali Convention Center, lightened up the city in blue, the color of unity against diabetes.

Last Friday 24th March 2017 - Rwanda joined the World to celebrate World Tuberculosis day focusing on the young population in Kigali City. The Ministry of Health through Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) with partners support, including WHO, has employed stringent ways that have caused a significant decline in Tuberculosis incidences in Rwanda.

The Ministry of Health in collaboration with partners including WHO has finalized a fruitful health week with thousands turning up for different health interventions countrywide. The health week was held between 13th-18th March 2017, and it delivered an integrated package of preventive services known to be highly cost-effective for improving maternal and child health, malaria, HIV, Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and malnutrition control interventions. The health week was covered by different media countrywide, print, audio visual, online and community outreach.

25 April 2017, Rwanda joined the world to commemorate World Malaria Day. It is now time to highlight the need to sustain country efforts and commitment to control and eliminate this life- threatening disease. This year the world malaria day theme is:” Closing the preventive gap for Malaria.” It is thus very imperative to reflect on the achievements made so far, the challenges encountered and the way forward to end Malaria by 2030 in African Region and Rwanda in particular as recommended by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).