Background: HIV/AIDS remains a major public health problem globally. The majority of people living with HIV are from Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 15-24 years. HIV testing is crucial as it is the gateway to HIV prevention, treatment, and care; therefore this study determined the prevalence and factors associated with self-reported HIV testing among AGYW in Rwanda. Methods: We conducted secondary data analysis on the AGYW using data extracted from the nationally representative population-based 2019/2020 cross-sectional Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). We described the characteristics of study participants and determined the prevalence of HIV testing and associated factors using the multivariable logistic regression model. We adjusted all our analyses for unequal sampling probabilities using survey weights. Results: There were a total of 5,732 AGYW, with the majority (57%) aged 15-19 years, 83% were not living with a man, 80% were from rural areas, 29% were from the East region, and 20% had a history of pregnancy. Self-reported HIV testing prevalence was 55.4% (95%CI: 53.7 to 57.0%). The odds of ever having an HIV test were significantly higher for those aged 20-24 years (aOR 2.87, 95%CI: 2.44 to 3.37); with higher education (aOR 2.41, 95%CI:1.48 to 3.93); who were rich (aOR 2.06, 95%CI:1.57 to 2.70); with access to at least one media (aOR 1.64, 95%CI: 1.14 to 2.37); who had ever been pregnant (aOR 16.12, 95%CI: 9.60 to 27.07); who ever had sex (aOR 2.40, 95%CI: 1.96 to 2.95); and those who had comprehensive HIV knowledge (aOR 1.34, 95%CI: 1.17 to 1.54). Conclusions: We report an unmet need for HIV testing among AGYW in Rwanda. We recommend a combination of strategies to optimize access to HIV testing services, especially among the 15-19 years adolescent girls, including facility-based testing, school and community outreach, awareness campaigns on HIV testing, and home-based testing through HIV self-testing.

Background: To describe the epidemiology and visual outcome of patients with ocular trauma treated at Queen Elizabeth Central hospital in Malawi. Methods: A prospective, observational study was undertaken from September 2017 to December 2017. Data on socio-demographic features, aetiology of trauma, type of ocular injury pre-referral pathway and treatment of ocular trauma was collected as the exposure variables. The main outcome variable was best corrected visual acuity at 8 weeks following initial visit. Results: A total of 102 patients (103 eyes) with ocular trauma were recruited with loss of follow up of 11 participants at 8 weeks following recruitment. The most affected age group were children under 11 years old (35.3%), followed by young adults of age between 21–30 years (22.5%). The male-to-female ratio for ocular injury was 2.8:1. Most participants had closed globe injuries (n = 72, 70.6%), with over half the population injured by blunt objects (n = 62, 60.8%). Furthermore, among the adult population, majority (n = 19 38%) were injured on the road during assaults (n = 24, 48%), while most paediatric injuries (n = 32, 61.5%) occurred at home during play. The incidence of monocular blindness was 25.3% at eight weeks after the first presentation. Factors that were associated with monocular blindness on multivariate analysis were living in rural areas and open globe injuries. Conclusion: Ocular trauma led to monocular blindness in a quarter of the study population. There is need for preventive education of ocular injuries at both family and community level.

Background: Several studies have shown that maternal HIV infection is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight and perinatal mortality. However, the association is conflicted with the effect of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on the pregnancy outcomes and it remains unexamined. If the association is confirmed then it would guide policy makers towards more effective prevention of mother to child HIV transmission interventions. Using methods for matching possible confounders, the objectives of the study were to assess the effect of maternal HIV infection on birth weight and perinatal mortality and to investigate the effect of ART on these two pregnancy outcomes in HIV-infected women.Methods: Data on 4111 and 4759 children, born within five years of the 2010 and 2015-16 Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys (MDHS) respectively, whose mothers had an HIV test result, were analysed. A best balancing method was chosen from a set of covariate balance methods namely, the 1:1 nearest neighbour (NN) matching, matching on the propensity score (PS) and inverse weighting on the PS. HIV and ART data were only available in the MDHS 2010, permitting an assessment of the moderating effect of ART on the association between maternal HIV infection and birth weight and perinatal mortality.Results: The overall average birth weight was 3227.9g (95% CI: 3206.4, 3249.5) in 2010 and 3226.4g (95%: 3205.6, 3247.2) in 2015-16 and perinatal mortality was 3.8% (95%: 3.2, 4.3) in 2010 and 3.5% (95%: 2.8, 3.8) in 2015-16. The prevalence of HIV among the mothers was 11.1% (95%: 10.1, 12.0) and 9.2% (95% CI: 8.4, 10.1) in 2010 and 2015-16, respectively. In 2010, maternal HIV infection was negatively associated with birth weight (mean= -25.3g, 95% CI:(-95.5, -7.4)) and in 2015-16 it was positively associated with birth weight (mean= 116.3g, 95% CI:(27.8, 204.7)). Perinatal mortality was higher in infants of HIV-infected mothers compared to infants of HIV-uninfected mothers (OR = 1.5, 95% CI:(1.1 - 3.1)) in 2010, while there was no difference in the rate in 2015-16 (OR = 1.0, 95% CI:(0.4, 1.6)). ART was not associated with birth weight, however, it was associated with perinatal mortality (OR=3.9, 95% CI:(1.1, 14.8)).Conclusion: The study has found that maternal HIV infection had an adverse effect on birth weight and perinatal mortality in 2010. Birth weight was not dependent on ART uptake but perinatal mortality was higher among infants of HIV-infected mothers who were not on ART. The higher birth weight among HIV-infected mothers and similarity in perinatal mortality with HIV-uninfected mothers in 2015-16 may be indicative of successes of interventions within the PMTCT program in Malawi.

Introduction: Appropriate complementary foods have been found to provide infants and young children with nutritional needs for their growth and development. In the absence of a randomized control trial (RCT), this study used observational data to evaluate the effect of appropriate complementary feeding practices on the nutritional status of children aged 6–23 months in Malawi using a propensity score matching statistical technique.Methods: Data on 4,722 children aged 6 to 23 months from the 2015–16 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) were analyzed. Appropriate complementary feeding practices were assessed using the core indicators recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO)/United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and consist of the introduction of complementary feeding, minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet based on a dietary intake during a most recent 24-h period.Results: The prevalence of stunting (height-for-age z-score < −2 SD) was 31.9% (95% CI: 29.3%, 34.6%), wasting (weight-for-height z-score < −2 SD) 3.5% (95% CI: 2.6%, 4.7%) and underweight (weight-for-age z-score < −2 SD) 9.9% (95% CI: 8.4%, 11.8%). Of the 4,722 children, 7.7% (95% CI: 6.9%, 8.5%) were provided appropriate complementary foods. Appropriate complementary feeding practices were found to result in significant decrease in stunting (OR = 0.7, 95% CI: 0.4, 0.95). They also resulted in the decrease of wasting (OR = 0.4, 95% CI: 0.1, 1.7) and underweight (OR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.2, 1.7).Conclusion: Appropriate complementary feeding practices resulted in a reduction of stunting, wasting, and underweight among children 6 to 23 months of age in Malawi. We recommend the continued provision of appropriate complementary foods to infants and young children to ensure that the diet has adequate nutritional needs for their healthy growth.

Background: Multilevel logistic regression models are widely used in health sciences research to account for clustering in multilevel data when estimating effects on subject binary outcomes of individual-level and cluster-level covariates. Several measures for quantifying between-cluster heterogeneity have been proposed. This study compared the performance of between-cluster variance based heterogeneity measures (the Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and the Median Odds Ratio (MOR)), and cluster-level covariate based heterogeneity measures (the 80% Interval Odds Ratio (IOR-80) and the Sorting Out Index (SOI)). Methods: We used several simulation datasets of a two-level logistic regression model to assess the performance of the four clustering measures for a multilevel logistic regression model. We also empirically compared the four measures of cluster variation with an analysis of childhood anemia to investigate the importance of unexplained heterogeneity between communities and community geographic type (rural vs urban) effect in Malawi. Results: Our findings showed that the estimates of SOI and ICC were generally unbiased with at least 10 clusters and a cluster size of at least 20. On the other hand, estimates of MOR and IOR-80 were less accurate with 50 or fewer clusters regardless of the cluster size. The performance of the four clustering measures improved with increased clusters and cluster size at all cluster variances. In the analysis of childhood anemia, the estimate of the between-community variance was 0.455, and the effect of community geographic type (rural vs urban) had an odds ratio (OR)=1.21 (95% CI: 0.97, 1.52). The resulting estimates of ICC, MOR, IOR-80 and SOI were 0.122 (indicative of low homogeneity of childhood anemia in the same community); 1.898 (indicative of large unexplained heterogeneity); 0.345-3.978 and 56.7% (implying that the between community heterogeneity was more significant in explaining the variations in childhood anemia than the estimated effect of community geographic type (rural vs urban)), respectively. Conclusion: At least 300 clusters with sizes of at least 50 would be adequate to estimate the strength of clustering in multilevel logistic regression with negligible bias. We recommend using the SOI to assess unexplained heterogeneity between clusters when the interest also involves the effect of cluster-level covariates, otherwise, the usual intra-cluster correlation coefficient would suffice in multilevel logistic regression analyses.

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health concern for both men and women. Spatial mapping and clustering analysis can reveal subtle patterns in IPV occurrences but are yet to be explored in Rwanda, especially at a lower small-area scale. This study seeks to examine the spatial distribution, patterns, and associated factors of IPV among men and women in Rwanda. Methods: This was a secondary data analysis of the 2019/2020 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS) individual-level data set for 1947 women aged 15–49 years and 1371 men aged 15–59 years. A spatially structured additive logistic regression model was used to assess risk factors for IPV while adjusting for spatial effects. The district-level spatial model was adjusted for fixed covariate effects and was implemented using a fully Bayesian inference within the generalized additive mixed effects framework. Results: IPV prevalence amongst women was 45.9% (95% Confidence interval (CI): 43.4–48.5%) while that for men was 18.4% (95% CI: 16.2–20.9%). Using a bivariate choropleth, IPV perpetrated against women was higher in the North-Western districts of Rwanda whereas for men it was shown to be more prevalent in the Southern districts. A few districts presented high IPV for both men and women. The spatial structured additive logistic model revealed higher odds for IPV against women mainly in the North-western districts and the spatial effects were dominated by spatially structured effects contributing 64%. Higher odds of IPV were observed for men in the Southern districts of Rwanda and spatial effects were dominated by district heterogeneity accounting for 62%. There were no statistically significant district clusters for IPV in both men or women. Women with partners who consume alcohol, and with controlling partners were at significantly higher odds of IPV while those in rich households and making financial decisions together with partners were at lower odds of experiencing IPV. Conclusion: Campaigns against IPV should be strengthened, especially in the North-Western and Southern parts of Rwanda. In addition, the promotion of girl-child education and empowerment of women can potentially reduce IPV against women and girls. Furthermore, couples should be trained on making financial decisions together. In conclusion, the implementation of policies and interventions that discourage alcohol consumption and control behaviour, especially among men, should be rolled out.