The Millennium Development Goal #6 is to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. Because we believe that grassroots initiatives can complement governmental and major international organization public health initiatives, in the coming year H4H will be supporting the Rwanda Project.

In December of 2008, H4H member David Patrick and colleagues travelled to Rwanda.  The group consulted widely with local Ministry of Health, NGOs and focus groups around HIV prevention and also provided demonstration of state of the art approaches to male circumcision (MC).  According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there is now compelling evidence that MC can reduce transmission of HIV from women to men by over 50% and that this represents one of the first one-time interventions with the potential to reduce HIV risk for the entire population over time.  Following the visit, the Rwandan Ministry of Health announced its policy of integrating MC into its HIV prevention programming, focusing on neonatal circumcision.   

The group is now consulting with colleagues in Rwanda about the best ways to assist with training health care workers to offer relevant procedures. Over the next few months the group will be working in partnership with H4H to write an application for a matching Voluntary Sector Fund (VSF) Grant  from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for this important health initiative. Our team will be teaching the teachers using WHO guidelines as a basis and will include volunteer urologists and Nurses.