The National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC) has called on all communities in the Country to actively participate in the fight against HIV/AIDS especially in combating new infections and stigmatisation.
Addressing the media in Meru town where the national commemoration of this year’s World AIDS Day takes place on Friday December 1, NSDCC Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ruth Laibon Masha said communities should desist from stigmatising infected persons and fight cultural habits that might result to new infections.
“The 2023 World AIDS Day theme, ‘Let Communities Lead’, highlights the importance of community-led responses working alongside other public health systems in addressing HIV-related stigma, discrimination and providing HIV prevention education and interventions to support treatment,” said Dr. Laibon-Masha.
She added that there was need for all stakeholders to invest in communities in order to ensure these issues are addressed from grassroots level.
“In this regard, every sector should communicate to those it serves about their specific roles in addressing this menace. Kenya is seventh globally in terms of people living with HIV and this means that despite the efforts we are putting in, stigma still stands in our way,” she said.
Dr. Masha asked Kenyan men to be engaged in the conversation considering that some were the source of infections besides the newborns and breastfeeding children.
“When a man goes out there and engages in unprotected sex with a sick woman, then he transfers the virus to his breastfeeding wife who in turn infects the child. It is high time the society understood that it is not only the mother who can contribute to mother-child transmission but also the father,” the CEO said.
She added that Kenya has made tremendous progress in combating HIV, doubling the number of people on lifelong antiretroviral treatment from 656, 369 in 2013 to 1,294,339 in 2023.
However, despite these achievements, the country grapples with the challenge of new HIV infections among children, adolescents and young people with reports of an estimated 62 new infections per week among adolescents aged 10-19, she added.
The country fell short of achieving the target to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission rates to less than 5 percent by 2020, recording a transmission rate of 8.6 percent in 2022.
In Meru county with a population of approximately 1,775,511 in 2022, the HIV situation is a major concern.
As of 2023, there were 30,912 individuals living with HIV, with 29,433 adults (15 years and above) and 1,479 children (0-14 years).
The HIV prevalence rate in the county is 2.4 percent, with a higher prevalence rate among females (3.7 percent) compared to males (1.3 percent).
In 2020, there were 543 new HIV infections with 443 occurring in adults and 100 in children.
Meanwhile, the International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS Kenya chapter chairperson Patricia Ochieng, applauded this year’s theme but called for more resources to coordinate various programs to fight stigma.
“It is good to involve the community, but to achieve this we need more resources. About 59 percent of people living with HIV are women, and with only two offices across the nation, we are incapacitated” she said.
Human rights and gender technical working groups chairperson Philip Nyakwana noted that building more movements in the community to mobilise, ensure people take up services and sensitize their colleagues on the available services.
“We need to take advantage and mobilise men to increase uptake of health services. Many of them have been left behind in seeking services and we should go to their social places and mobilize them with the aim of changing their attitude towards HIV/Aids,” said Nyakwana.
