Patients Benefiting from Access
While accessing HIV drugs remains a challenge for many, others have benefited from the government's and international donors' efforts to make ARVs more available and affordable across the country. Thirty-six year old Beata Mukagasana is one such patient.

Since the spring of 2002, she has been receiving subsidized ARV treatment at Gikongo Health Center, the rural health facility nearest to where she lives. In exchange for an up-front consultation fee of 200 Rwandan francs ($.36), the equivalent of her daily wage as a local bean grower, Beata is able to access free ARVs, laboratory tests and treatment for HIV-related opportunistic infections subsidized by international donor programs.