Children as young as 12-years-old can now walk into a health facility unaccompanied, take an HIV test and although they also have a right to know their results, they are required to do so with a parent or guardian, The New Times can reveal.

Speaking exclusively to The New Times, the HIV Division Manager at Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), Dr Gallican Rwibasira, said that although 18 is the legal adult age, when it comes to HIV, the rules are different.

"We must admit that young people are getting sexually active at a very young age. A 12-year-old can take a test although we require that he or she receives the results in the company of an adult. We want them to have the right information, at the right time and with the right psychological support,” he said.

Disclosure process

Rwibasira explained that although parents whose children are HIV positive are encouraged to constantly have open conversations with them, RBC has its own disclosure process where the child is talked to about their status as early as when they are five years old.

"The child will need to take medication but he or she needs to know why. We start this process when he or she is five years old and between 7 and 10 years, we expect the full disclosure to be complete so that the child fully understands their situation,” he said.

He explained that this helps in adherence in terms of consistency in taking medication because they fully understand why it is important to do so.

Rwibasira explained that while the Covid-19 pandemic came with its own set of challenges, people living with HIV were not greatly affected since their medication was given to them in bulk.

However, he said that a slight decrease was noticed in the number of people who come for Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT).

"This is mostly because most of these people walk in when they feel that they have been exposed to the virus. This mostly affected people in Kigali because of the issues related to transport during the lockdown,” he said.

What the law says

In 2013, the government put in place a Ministerial Order determining programmes and strategies to ensure that children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS are assisted and protected.

Article 4 of this order says that when a child with HIV/AIDS is attending school as they should, the school is responsible for setting up a place where he or she can safely and confidentially take antiretroviral drugs. 

The school is also required to assign a person to monitor and assist the child so that he/she follows through with medical appointments and to ensure that the child is in good physical, mental and emotional state.

If an HIV positive child is in boarding school, a healthcare facility must provide antiretroviral drugs covering a quarter.

A child living with HIV/AIDS has a right to give opinion so that any decision on change in follow-up shall be discussed with him/her.

The child also has to be informed about changing drugs, family planning, and modes of HIV/AIDS transmission so that he/she can avoid infecting others.

The latest statistics from RBC indicate that, the HIV prevalence among adults, aged 15-49 years, was 2.6 per cent and 3 per cent among those aged 15-64 years indicating that approximately 210,200 adults in Rwanda were living with HIV.

It was found that HIV prevalence was higher in women (3.7 per cent) than in men (2.2 per cent) and HIV prevalence was 1.9 times higher in urban areas compared to rural areas.