Care and Treatment
In the area of care and treatment,
TRAC is the primary agency responsible for national coordination of
clinical treatment for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA),
training of trainers and supervisors in the treatment of HIV/AIDS
and related diseases, and development of national protocol and
curricula for HIV/AIDS-related care. The care and treatment unit
defines mechanisms and systems for the management, control,
monitoring and coordination of all interventions linked to clinical
care and treatment for PLWHA. A major new initiative for TRAC in the
area of antiretroviral therapy (ART) is the establishment of a new
ARV center that will be jointly managed by TRAC and the Central
Hospital of Kigali.
PMTCT/VCT
In the area of
PMTCT/VCT, TRAC is the primary national agency responsible for
defining and updating policy norms and directives for national PMTCT,
developing training modules and guides for PMTCT/VCT, orienting
partners and resources to scale up PMTCT, supervising PMTCT
trainings and supervisions, and analyzing data on PMTCT
Epidemiology Surveillance
The epidemiology and surveillance unit seeks to
implement a system for improved monitoring of the evolution of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in Rwanda.The unit current tracks the HIV/AIDS
epidemic by conducting epidemiological surveillance of pregnant
women seeking services at antenatal care (ANC) facilities. In order
to obtain more reliable estimates of the scope and scale of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic in Rwanda for improved decision-making, program planning
and evaluation, the unit is expanding its current HIV surveillance
activities to include epidemiological surveillance (starting with
AIDS deaths in hospitals), behavioral surveillance, monitoring of
ARV drug resistance, and integration of data from PMTCT/VCT centers
and demobilized military troops into ANC surveillance data.
ICT/Applied Statistics
The ICT and
applied statistics unit serves to provide support to the other units.
Divided into four desks – applied statistics, database management,
LAN administration and information management – the unit seeks to
exploit ICT for better program management and coordination and to
establish income-generating activities such as IT training and
secondary analysis of data.
Some of the
major goals for the ICT and applied statistics unit in the 2004-2008
period are the establishment of an electronic HIV/AIDS data bank/warehouse
at TRAC (in collaboration with the epidemiology and surveillance
unit), the creation of a research advisory group at TRAC (with
participation from all programmatic units), the development of an
interface with the Ministry of Health ethics committee, and the
establishment of a training database with a focus on research.
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