As per the UNAIDS 95-95-95 treatment targets, Rwanda was one of the Countries that demonstrated significant progress achieving 84-98-90 as per the RPHIA of 2019. This demonstrated challenge with the 1st 95, and all national efforts are currently geared towards closing this gap.
Society for Family Health (SFH), Rwanda was awarded a grant on 30th July 2019 with activity implementation commencing on 1st October 2019 to target Key and Priority Populations (KP/PP) in the HIV response. The goal of the grant is to maintain the gains of the national KP program while applying other programmatic innovations aimed at providing standardized HIV prevention and treatment services to KPs (mainly MSM & FSW) and associated/linked PPs (high risk clients and friends of KPs). The model adopted by SFH is to work directly with health centres and community structures through a system strengthening approach to provide HIV prevention and treatment services to Key and Priority Populations (KPs/PPs). The community model engages KP peers who mobilize their colleagues for HIV Testing Services (HTS), offer adherence support to those on ART, and participate in the distribution of HIV prevention commodities (mainly condoms, lubricants, HVST etc.). The facility component targets working with trained health care workers to support HTS, ART linkage, and conduct of biannual reviews for KPs. SFH Rwanda’s KP/PP project currently targets 90 facilities spread across the 4 provinces of Rwanda and City of Kigali.
The team at SFH Rwanda recognizes the need for generating more granular data to direct programming for Key Populations.