As Rwanda joins the global celebrations of World Aids Day on December 1, 2016, Ministry of Health (MOH) through Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) has launched a series of annual events, activities and campaigns. Rwanda HIV/AIDs celebrations started with a march from Onatracom (Nyamirambo) to the Stadium of Kigali (Nyamirambo) where activities commenced.

The yearlong events rhythm with Rwanda’s 2016 World Aids Day theme, “Get up all against HIV/AIDs-still there” and the launch will include voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), condom distribution as well as modern Family planning interventions.

The ministry of health aims to use these annual national campaigns to raise HIV/AIDS awareness to all citizens through comprehensive actions to reduce new HIV infections. It also intends to give space to members of the community to explore different measures of HIV prevention which will in return create community ownership in fighting new infections and improve utilization of HIV activities.

“We hope to improve increase individual role in HIV prevention, promote and facilitate everyone’s access to HIV prevention, care and treatment measures, reinforce community participation in HIV interventions,” says MOH experts.