Week in health

Last Tuesday, the State Minister for Primary Health and Public Healthcare, Dr Patrick Ndimubanzi, said HIV prevention through continuous education on prevention and treatment among children is one of the main strategies toward attaining an AIDS-free generation by 2030. Ndimubanzi made the remarks while officiating at the national event to mark the World Aids Day at Camp Kigali in Nyarugenge District. He said the general objective of this year’s campaign is to reduce new HIV infections and to improve care and treatment among children and adolescents by reinforcing their access to and utilisation of HIV services. Rwanda commemorated this year’s World Aids Day under the theme, “It’s everyone’s responsibility to prevent and treat HIV among our children and adolescents.” December 1 also marked the beginning of a 10-month sensitisation campaign on HIV prevention, which will be done mainly through community outreach activities and using the mass media. In a related drive to fight HIV, at least 900 teenagers living in rural areas of Musanze District have undergone circumcision. The teenagers, aged between 10 and 19 years, were also sensitised about how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Health officials said the campaign aims to give rural teenagers who had no knowledge on the importance of circumcision or had lacked means to get circumcised, the opportunity to do so. The teenagers welcomed the circumcision drive, saying they made the decision to get circumcised after receiving training about the benefits of the procedure. Meanwhile, 28 children with heart defects received free heart surgery from a team of Belgian surgeons at King Faisal Hospital, Kigali. The surgeries, sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Rwanda Social Security Board, commenced on November 22 and ended last week. The Belgian surgeons, part of a team from Chain of Hope, a children’s charity that carries out heart surgeries in developing countries, did catheterisation procedures on 15 children and performed open-heart surgery on 13. Dr Thierry Sluysmans, a cardiologist with Chain of Hope, said for him it was a pleasure to make a difference in the lives of different families. “We are pleased to operate on these patients as saving a life makes a difference. When a child is operated on, it gives a huge relief to the family, which is the most important thing for us,” Dr Sluysmans said. “My son’s life was hanging by a thread and I had lost all hope. But God was on my side, my son was operated on and he is now fine and healthy. Ever since he was operated on he has never been the same; he is now a strong boy,” said Lucy Nyirabwiza, a mother whose son was operated on. Elsewhere around the world, scientists say they have fine tuned a gene editing method to make it safer and more accurate if it is to be used in humans to cure inherited diseases or inborn errors. The findings have been outlined in Science Magazine which comes as world leaders in the field gather to debate the ethics of altering human DNA using the method, known as Crispr-Cas9. Gene editing holds medical promise, but researchers say changing a person’s DNA also has potential risks and ethical quandaries. The first International Summit on Human Gene Editing will debate how far the science should progress.