Last week, health officials who were recently suspended following the death of an expectant mother at a health facility in Kayonza were arrested.

The Minister for Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, ordered a probe into the conduct of the four medical officials following complaints that they disregarded procedure and clinical guidelines during the operation carried out weeks ago.

Aloysie Nikuze Umulisa, 30, had a caesarean section at the hospital, but bled to death hours later although her baby survived.

Police Spokesman Celestin Twahirwa said the quartet was arrested as investigations continue. Currently, they are being held at Kabarondo Police Station, where they will be interrogated pending formal charges, Twahirwa added.

In related developments, city authorities and stakeholders charted new ways of ending the high burden of HIV/AIDs in the cities compared to rural areas. Officials from City of Kigali, health experts from Rwanda Biomedical Centre, Ministry of Health and UNAIDs made the suggestion yesterday, during a meeting to fast track the agenda towards ending Urban AIDs epidemic in Rwanda.

The Mayor of City of Kigali, Fidele Ndayisaba said people most vulnerable to HIV are those living in the urban areas and once they are infected economic progress slows down. "Unfortunately in the case of HIV, the productive population is weakened yet cities are known as the engines for growth, it is therefore, difficult to advance without this population,” Ndayisaba said.

Currently, HIV prevalence rate in Rwanda stands at 3 per cent.

The Mayor also advised those involved in risky sexual behaviour to stop and those who have contracted the virus to seek early treatment.

Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday announced that it will invest an additional $120 million (about Rwf90 billion) in family planning programmes over the next three years, a 25 per cent increase on its current family planning funding. This announcement came in response to a new report which found that the global community risks falling short of its goal to reach an additional 120 million women and girls with access to contraceptives and family planning services by 2020.

The 2014-2015 progress report by Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), a global partnership that supports the rights of women and girls to decide when, and how many children they want to have, shows that FP2020 and its partners must take immediate action to speed up progress.

The Foundation says with five years to go, the global community has a narrow yet critical window of opportunity to bring progress back on track. It states that it is the policy, programme and budget decisions made now that will determine whether we keep our promise to 120 million women.

Else where, a new report published in the Lancet shows that Pregnancy-related deaths have fallen by almost half in the past 25 years. Around 303,000 women died of complications during pregnancy or up to six weeks after giving birth in 2015 — down from 532,000 in 1990.

Officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the results showed "huge progress”.

However, only nine countries hit targets set by the UN.