From statistics generated as of September 24, some 72,539 people were getting the medication at 517 sites countrywide. As of the same date in August, there were 71,144 patients on the medication.
HIV/Aids prevalence is estimated at about three percent of the country’s population, which could be around 290,000 patients. About a-third of them are at stages when they have to be taking medicines.
This means that more than 70 percent of patients who need the life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs have access to them, and 60 percent of children needing ARVs are on treatment.
Latest data from TRAC Plus – the government disease control agency shows that there are 6191 children getting different pediatric treatment.
The western Province has the highest number of people on treatment – at 15,966 or some 22 percent of the total ARV recipients. The Northern Province, which is the most populated area of the country – has the least number of people on treatment.
Each of Rwanda's 30 districts has at least one "one-stop" health centre providing HIV counselling, testing and treatment. Patients who test positive immediately give a blood sample and return a week later to receive the results of their CD4 count, which indicates immune system strength.
Rwanda uses a broad prevention strategy of Education, Abstinence, Be faithful and correct and consistent Condom use, but there is scant knowledge about HIV among those most at risk, such as men who have sex with men, sex workers and truck drivers.
However, the results of a survey in May 2009 by the Association of Vulnerable Widows Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS, and the Network of People Living with HIV, found that HIV-positive people faced most discrimination in society; other groups included sex workers and asylum seekers.