Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. Jun 25, 2025; 14(2): 107322
Published online Jun 25, 2025. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v14.i2.107322
Sustained maternal human immunodeficiency virus viral load suppression and cascade of human immunodeficiency virus testing among exposed infants in Rwanda
Hafidha Mhando Bakari, Jackson Sebeza, Haji Mbwana Ally, Hassan Fredrick Fussi, Habib Omari Ramadhani, Peter Memiah, Djemima Umutesi, Basile Ikuzo, Gallican Rwibasira
Hafidha Mhando Bakari, Department of Literature, Communication and Publishing, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam 35091, Tanzania
Jackson Sebeza, School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, Kigali 4285, Rwanda
Haji Mbwana Ally, Department of Medicine, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Moshi 3010, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Hassan Fredrick Fussi, Department of Medicine, District Hospital, Dar es Salaam 35091, Tanzania
Habib Omari Ramadhani, Department of Medicine, Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
Peter Memiah, Department of Global Health, Graduate School, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
Djemima Umutesi, Basile Ikuzo, Gallican Rwibasira, Division of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Rwanda Biomedical Center, Institute of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Disease Prevention and Control, Kigali 4285, Rwanda
Author contributions: Bakari HM wrote the original draft; Bakari HM and Sebeza J designed the study; Sebeza J was responsible for overall data collection; Ally HM, Fussi HF, and Ramadhani HO were responsible for developing the methodology participated in the formal analysis and investigation; Bakari HM, Sebeza J, Ally HM, Fussi HF, Ramadhani HO, Memiah P, Umutesi D, Ikuzo B, and Rwibasira G participated in the review and editing; all of the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Institutional review board statement: Ethical approval for this study was granted by Rwanda National Ethics Committee (RNEC) with ethical approval registration number, No. 104/RNEC/2022.
Informed consent statement: This was a retrospective review of routinely collected clinical data. No consent was sought.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Consent to share data was not obtained but the presented data were anonymized, and risk of identification is low.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jackson Sebeza, MD, MPH, School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, KK 737 Street, Kigali 4285, Rwanda. gallican.rwibasira@rbc.gov.rw
Received: March 20, 2025
Revised: April 13, 2025
Accepted: May 18, 2025
Published online: June 25, 2025
Processing time: 95 Days and 3.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Sustained maternal viral load suppression (VLS) is a key component for prevention of mother to child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). We explored maternal viral load results, infant HIV testing uptake at 6–weeks, 9-months and 18–months and HIV infant HIV incidence in Rwanda. Of 1145 mothers, the incidence of sustained VLS was 91%. Infant HIV testing uptake at 6–weeks, 9–months and 18–months was 100.0%, 95.1% and 87.9%, respectively. Only 0.7% of infant were diagnosed with HIV at 18 months. Maternal disclosure of HIV status and having peer support were associated with increased likelihood of sustained VLS and infant HIV testing, respectively. High maternal VLS was critical to minimize HIV infection among HIV-exposed infants in this cohort.