Kenya’s Ministry of Health released findings from a 2020 research by the Kenya Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (Kenphia), just a month before the global onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Kenphia study revealed the alarming gender disparity in the prevalence of HIV in Kenya – the 6.6 per cent rate for women is double that of men (3.1 per cent) while for the youth demographic (20 to 34 years), it indicated a rise to almost three times these averages.
There was room for hope, though. There have been decades of work by community health workers and educators, youth and women’s groups, NGOs, and healthcare workers of different cadres, bolstered by a committed state. This resulted in dramatically improved quality of life for Kenyans with HIV. It also reduced risk of infection and death due to HIV and Aids-related illnesses.
Additionally, continued media work to change socio-cultural narratives allows diverse people living with HIV to tell their stories, resulting in far less stigma, and increased sexual and reproductive health knowledge. That being said, it is remarkably easy to lose these gains with poor implementation and ill-advised conflict within otherwise robust and functional public health programmes. For example, many Kenyans with HIV have noted a significant reduction in their drug assignations since last year.
Dramatic fall in doses
Daily ARV doses are usually given to those with HIV in three or six-month batches, especially for people whose lab results show stability and who otherwise have no complaints.
When the doses being given went dramatically low to one-month disbursements, and in some places one week, Kenya’s HIV advocates asked hard questions. It was revealed that due to ongoing reports of grand corruption at the medical supply authority, a key stakeholder in the supply of ARVs had refused to continue using the government agency as the national distributor for these medicines.
The result is that Kenyans are facing a complete stockout of these drugs in a few months. This must be urgently resolved. Kenyans urgently need their drugs, because without them, there is a very real risk of increased drug resistance. There is also the possibility of treatment failure, meaning that thousands of people whose conditions were very stable and under control due to these life-saving drugs run the risk of falling ill due to compromised immune systems.
The lives of Kenyans are literally in the hands of the state in this case. High-level conversations must be urgently had to resolve this stalemate. Advocates and the public should never have had to plead for access to any drug in a country that has very public and verbalised aspirations towards universal health care. We generally do not plead for access to antibiotics, painkillers, or insulin: Kenyans with HIV should not have been put in such a demeaning and uncaring place. The issues facing ARVs should be solved as a priority. BY DAILY NATION