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Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda has been awarded the Africa ICT industry development award by ForgeAhead, a South African ICT firm.

The RwandaTRACnet, a bilingual dynamic information technology system that uses cell phones, text messages and sophisticated database to collect, store, analyze and disseminate critical program information, drug distribution and patient information related to the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS was announced the winner of the 2007 African ICT Achievers Award on November 17, on the same event, at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

President Kagame was awarded with a Lifetime Achievers Award for his commitment to the proliferation of the ICT industry in Rwanda and across the continent, as well as promotion of the use of technology within governments for better service delivery to citizens.

The competition was organized by the ForgeAhead and the South African department of Communications under the theme “Making the African Century a Reality”, The 9th Africa ICT Achievers Award was contested by 300 participants of whom 43 were selected from 20 African countries.

According to the director general of Treatment and Research AIDS Center (TRAC) Ms. Anita Asiimwe, on the event of the 9th annual Africa ICT Achievers Award, TRACnet system was awarded as one of the top seven public sectors embracing ICT in Africa in 2007 and TRAC as an institution was awarded with the overall winner of the top ICT organization Award.

TRACnet was developed by voxiva in 2003 to speed up service delivery to the people living with HIV/AIDS. The system was funded by the .US. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) being used by 400 health care professionals in all 155 health centers that offer retroviral therapy to more than 44,000 Rwandans.

Rwanda is to host the 2007 Africa Malaria Day Territorial Memorial proceedings, scheduled for the 25^th of April, revealed Dr Innocent Nyaruhirira, the country minister in charge of accusation of HIV/Aids and Other Epidemics.

The event will be held in the Eastern province since it has the highest malaria records and the topic of discussion will be, “The topic of this case is ‘Free Africa from Malaria Now’.

At press league held at Treatment, Research and Aids Control (TRAC) premises at Nyarugenge District, Dr Innocent Nyaruhirira said that according to resolutions of last years’ Abuja summit, the objective was to cut to half, the folk who perish of malaria by the year 2010.

“The Abuja summit targets were to quickly scale upward insecticide-treated mosquito nets and artemisinin combination therapy in the national sector,” he said, adding that new issues that had been discussed embraced the introduction of original home-based maintenance administration of malaria activities using Artemisinin at the community scale, while accomplish the Millennium Development Goals in the course of action.

He expressed the pleasure to host this global event and used this chance give confidence to the citizens of Rwanda that malaria is absolutely preventable if all of take the obligation to reside in secure and spotless surroundings and make it as a tradition to practices, such as mosquito nets, timely consulting of community health workers and health services for any fever, and avoiding blindfolded auto-medication. This will help to improve the health sector in Rwanda.

Compiled by Grace Nakawooya