Though major causes of illness and death in Rwanda have been malaria, respiratory infections, and tuberculosis, AIDS is rapidly becoming the number one killer in the country. UNAIDS estimated at the end of 2001 that HIV/AIDS had infected 8.9 percent of adult Rwandans, and orphaned 260,000 children. The epidemic is expected to reduce Rwandan life expectancy to 32 years by 2010.

Before the political turmoil of the mid-1990s, the infection rate was much higher in urban areas than rural areas, where most of the population lived. But the civil war, by creating huge population movements and refugee camps, changed that pattern so that by 1997 the urban-rural gap in HIV prevalence was closing.

Sources: BBC country profile, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Synergy Project

Source: Synergy Project

Demographic data contained in this section was obtained from the following sources: The Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World Population Data Sheet was used for total population, life expectancy at birth, infant mortality, fertility, birth rate, death rate, % of married women 15-49 using modern methods of contraception, % of population 15-49 with HIV/AIDS in 2007/2008, and the GNI PPP per capita (2008). Literacy rates were found in the Population Reference Bureau’s publication 2005 Women of Our World. HIV prevalence data for 2001 and 2003 was obtained from the UNAIDS Barcelona 2002 report; HIV prevalence and orphan data for 2005 was obtained from the UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2006. Data on the % women who have discussed AIDS prevention with their husband or partner can be found in ORC Macro and USAID’s Women’s Lives and Experiences: Changes in the Past Ten Years (Research Findings from the Demographic and Health Surveys). Childhood malaria mortality data was accessed in 2003 from the United Nations Statistics Divisions’ Millennium Indicators. Tuberculosis data was obtained from the United Nations Statistics Division’s Millennium Indicators: MDGInfo 2006. In some cases information was unavailable.

National University of Rwanda, School of Public Health

National University of Rwanda, Faculty of Medicine

Treatment and Research AIDS Center (TRAC)