Rwanda on track to achieve HIV epidemic control

The Government of Rwanda (GoR), the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and ICAP at Columbia University released new data from the Rwanda Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (RPHIA) that demonstrate Rwanda’s remarkable progress toward epidemic control — particularly in achieving high levels of linkage to treatment and viral load suppression among people living with HIV.

According to RPHIA data, HIV prevalence – the percentage of the population living with HIV – among adults age 15 – 64 years was 3 percent, indicating approximately 210,200 adults in Rwanda were living with HIV. HIV prevalence was shown to be greater in women (3.7 percent) than men (2.2 percent).

RPHIA also showed that 76 percent of adults living with HIV achieved viral load suppression – a widely regarded measure of effective HIV treatment in a population – surpassing the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) target of 73 percent by 2020. Rwanda has made tremendous progress by reaching or exceeding the UNAIDS 90–90–90 targets among women and, nationally by attaining 84–98–90 among adults.

The RPHIA survey was led by GoR through the Rwanda Biomedical Centre and National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, with funding from PEPFAR and technical assistance through CDC. RPHIA was implemented by ICAP in collaboration with GoR entities and is part of the larger Population-based HIV Impact Assessment project (PHIA) – a multi-country effort to measure the reach and impact of national HIV programs and policies using household-based surveys.