Mondays with the Minister: Vaccines and Immunization

On Monday, 9 January, I held the first Mondays with the Minister of 2012. It was a great start to the New Year. The topic of yesterday’s discussion was “Vaccines and Immunization in Rwanda.” We hosted the discussion on Twitter, and, through my new partnership with the Rwandan company Nyaruka, we were also able to integrate SMS into the discussion and received messages on that platform as well. Anyone who wishes to view either the Twitter or SMS discussions can do so here:

Twitter #MinisterMondays

and

Nyaruka #MinisterMondays

During #MinisterMondays yesterday, I received many questions, including:

• What has been most important achievement in the past few years regarding the immunizations? 
• Can you describe Rwanda’s involvement in efforts to find an HIV/AIDS vaccine?
• What are Rwanda’s experiences with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and treatment for pneumonia and are these two complimentary?

I posed a few questions for all participants as well, including:

• What do all you think is financial/human/moral cost of failing to implement 100% of possibilities provided by vaccines?
• Question for all: Developing an HIV vaccine is only longterm gender-equitable solution to pandemic. What do you think? 

It was a fantastic discussion and I learned from participants what some of their concerns are concerning vaccines and immunization. I can see that the reach of this forum is expanding and more and more people are beginning to communicate through these platforms. One thing I remarked during this last discussion was that several complaints were voiced (that were unrelated to the topic of this session). From this experience, I realized that the Ministry of Health must improve its sensitization of the population and empower people to use local outlets for complaints and concerns when their rights are not respected. There are faster ways to have your complaint heard in Rwanda, and to make individual and collective rights fulfilled!

Thank you all again for a great discussion yesterday. I look forward to connecting with you all – and more participants – again on 23 January. The next #MinisterMondays topic will be “Gender and Health.”

Follow along on Twitter or by SMS on Nyaruka

Mondays with the Minister: Vaccines and Immunizations

On Monday, 9 January, I will host my first Mondays with the Minister of 2012. The session will run from 5:00-7:00PM Rwanda time (3:00-5:00PM GMT). The topic for this coming session is Vaccines and Immunizations in Rwanda.

You can tweet questions or comments to me at @agnesbinagwaho, you can follow the discussion by searching #MinisterMondays, and you can send an SMS with your questions or comments at 0788 38 66 55. (If dialing from outside of Rwanda, please dial: +250 788 38 66 55). You can also follow the SMS discussion by visiting http://listen.nyaruka.com/ 

I welcome all of your questions and comments and look forward to another great #MinisterMondays conversation.

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Mondays with the Minister #3: Malnutrition in Rwanda

On Monday 12 December 2011, I hosted the third consecutive “Mondays with the Minister” Twitter chat on the topic of malnutrition in Rwanda. For the first time, SMS was used in addition to Twitter. I recently partnered with a local company, Nyaruka, to integrate SMS into the bi-weekly discussions. Nyaruka moved fast to design a superb web platform where I can receive, respond to, and publicly display SMS messages. During this first Twitter/SMS Mondays with the Minister, approximately 40 people participated on Twitter, asking questions from across Rwanda and other countries in the region. Students and researchers interested in global health also joined from Europe and North America. 

We will be improving the publicity on the SMS portion of the discussion in coming weeks. Radio announcements and a Ministry of Health press release will help to publicize it more widely for future chats, allowing Rwandans across the country to contribute questions or comments about the chosen topic in the language of their choice (Kinyarwanda, English, or French) during the time frame of the discussion. Five total questions were contributed by SMS in English and Kinyarwanda this past Monday, and I look forward to seeing many more in future weeks.

This week’s discussion on malnutrition in Rwanda touched on current chronic malnutrition and anemia statistics in Rwanda, which remain very high. We discussed the state of the Ministry of Health’s response to malnutrition, and many Rwandans were interested in behavioral change communication efforts underway to promote balanced diets in addition to structural anti-poverty interventions (such as One Cow per Family, kitchen gardens, milk for students at school, and ubudehe) that seek to combat food insecurity at the community level. Others were interested in institutional collaborations to address malnutrition, public-private partnerships in Government programs, the linkages between nutrition and care for chronic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis, oversight of UNHCR refugee camps, and the prevention of obesity as Rwanda’s economic growth continues. I asked what participants thought was the weakest part of the Ministry of Health’s response, and this led to an exchange about meeting the needs of vulnerable youth – particularly “street kids.”

All in all, the discussion was very interesting and informative for me as Minister of Health. As is the case with Rwanda’s Umushyikirano (National Day of Dialogue), it is so important for Rwandans to be able to communicate with their Government. In the Ministry of Health and throughout the central Government, we strive for transparency, accountability, and accessibility.

I’d like to thank again Nyaruka’s staff, especially Nic, Eugene, and Eric, for their hard work on creating this new platform. I appreciate this partnership and highly recommend them for other ICT for health initiatives. For all those interested, you can visit their company’s website at http://nyaruka.com.

My next “Mondays with the Minister” discussion on Twitter and SMS will be held on 9 January 2012 (time TBD). The topic will be vaccinations, and we will discuss the impact, delivery, and sustainability of vaccines in Rwanda. As a reminder, you can follow the discussion through my Twitter account @agnesbinagwaho and by searching for #MinisterMondays. You can also send a question or comment in Kinyarwanda, English, or French by SMS to 0788 38 66 55. SMS questions and my answers can be viewed online at listen.nyaruka.com. I greatly look forward to our next discussion.

Bringing Mondays with the Minister to Communities

As previously discussed on my blog, I recently began a series of online discussions through Twitter to allow Rwandans, colleagues, and partners around the world to discuss issues related to health policy. These chats, held on Monday afternoons twice per month, are entitled “Mondays with the Minister.” 

I believe that equitable access to information and participation in debates around public health issues is a right of all citizens of the world, and I particularly avail myself for my fellow Rwandan citizens. I find this access important in all aspects of the Ministry of Health’s work. I am grateful to the owner of the ICT company Nyaruka, who leads by the same principles and worked at no cost with me on this project in order to allow Rwandans to send questions and comments by SMS for the discussion. Because cell phone coverage in Rwanda is over 60%, and because each of the three community health workers per village have cell phones, all Rwandans should be able to contribute a question or comment if they wish. The owner of the ICT company Nyaruka also graciously proposed to make this access free forever, as far as it is for a program that shares the same goals of open communication for improving health. 

Mondays with the Minister discussions will be held every two weeks. The time of may change, but they will always last for two hours duration. 

The next Mondays with the Minister chat will be Monday, 12 December from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The topic for discussion and debate will be malnutrition in Rwanda and what the Ministry of Health is doing to address the problem. 

To join on Twitter, follow me on Twitter at @agnesbinagwaho. To join by SMS, send a message to 0788 38 66 55 between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. And, if dialing from outside of Rwanda, please dial: +250 788 38 66 55. You can also see the questions submitted by SMS and their answers at listen.nyaruka.com. I consider this and the Twitter forum to be a great opportunity for improving service delivery by incorporating the direct suggestions of the population, who are at the center of all decisions made by the Ministry of Health. I welcome your questions and look forward to productive and inclusive discussions!

Twitter: @agnesbinagwaho

SMS: 0788 38 66 55

Web: listen.nyaruka.com

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Announcing "Mondays with the Minister"

Dear all,

I would like to announce a new series of online discussions that I will be moderating through my Twitter account (@agnesbinagwaho). One Monday per month, I will log onto Twitter to lead discussion, answer questions, and take comments about a specific topic related to health programs in Rwanda. These chats will be called “Mondays with the Minister,” and you can follow them through my account or by searching Twitter for #MinisterMondays.

I held the first round of “Mondays with the Minister” this past week on Monday, 14 November. The topic was family planning in Rwanda and around the world, and I partnered with the International Conference on Family Planning (@fpdakar2011). Approximately 50 people from many different countries asked questions and sent in comments, which I answered and re-posted on my own Twitter account. The discussion was very instructive and encouraging. I absolutely loved interacting with people with so many different perspectives on this important topic, and hope that the conversations we started will continue long past the Twitter chat.

The New Times published a short article on “Mondays with the Minister” on Saturday, 19 November. You can read it under the Media tab of my blog, or on the New Times website at http://www.newtimes.co.rw/pdf.php?issue=14814&article=47340.