Last week, experts on HIV/AIDS from several partner institutions in the country and beyond recommended that self-testing and test-and-treat strategies be implemented in combating the spread of the virus. According to these medics, this will ensure that people start treatment as soon as they test positive, a move that alongside counselling would help prevent new infections while fostering clinical benefits for individuals. The recommendations were arrived at after a two-day workshop in Kigali that disseminated results of key studies on HIV. Among the discussion was to determine the way forward in mainstreaming the test-and-treat strategy into the existing national HIV guidelines for people living with HIV. Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, the head HIV prevention at Rwanda Biomedical Centre said that the recommendations are based on research, and will be further considered in the 2015 Rwanda HIV Guidelines for the use of antiretroviral drugs for the treatment and prevention benefits for individuals and the community. Nsanzimana explained that the current guidelines do not recommend treatment until an HIV positive person has only below 500 CD4 but this could change. He emphasized that immediate treatment could reduce deaths by 53 per cent and avoid transmission to others by over 90 per cent. Meanwhile, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, the Minister for Health, affirmed that government will continue prioritising evidence-based policy formulation, adding that researchers should continue playing a critical role in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The minister said that now that the self-test and test-and-treat tools had been given a go-ahead by scientists, the next step by the government is to mobilise funds and capacity building to put the two tools into use. In similar news, an official from the health ministry confirmed that since mothers form a large part of the workforce, they ought to be accorded ample time to breastfeed their children. The remarks were made by Alexis Mucumbitsi, the head of the nutrition department in the Ministry of Health, during the commencement of two-day a workshop organized to highlight the importance of breastfeeding as part of activities to mark the World breastfeeding week. Mucumbitsi explained that the ability for working mothers to breastfeed their babies benefits the society as a whole. He explained that a mother can have choices, for example, do exclusive breastfeeding for six months before going back to work or breastfeeding at work, which seems to have more advantages. On the employers’ side Mucumbitsi urged them to provide rooms for breastfeeding mothers at work as a way to absenteeism and increase productivity. Elsewhere around the world, health experts in the UK are planning to take part in the first ever trials of using dogs to detect cancer. Samples from prostate cancer patients will be used as part of national research to see if the method is more accurate than conventional testing. A charity, which trains dogs in medical detection, will take urine samples from 3,000 patients from Milton Keynes University Hospital as part of a three-year trial.
