Kenyan children having sex as early as 10-years-old

By GATONYE GATHURA

KENYA: A new survey shows that Kenyan children are starting to have sex as early as 10-years-old, with girls having more of it. And by about age 20, there is virtually no virgin among both genders.

Also a high number of Kenyans are still engaging in high-risk sexual behaviour thereby exposing themselves to HIV infection, according to a new national report on the status of HIV, which involved 9,189 households in all regions of Kenya, except North Eastern.

Condoms use

The study indicates that despite high awareness about HIV, only about 11 per cent of women and less than a 50 per cent of men are consistently using condoms even when they do not know the HIV status of their partners.

Despite multiple messages decrying the culture of multiple partners, the study shows this is still a major practice with 30 per cent of young men reporting having two or more sexual partners.

“Among sexually-active persons aged 25-64 years, 3 per cent of women and 17 per cent of men reported having more than one sexual partner in the last year,” says the report.

Releasing what he said were preliminary findings of the study ahead of final results in December, Cabinet Secretary for Health James Macharia said a higher number of Kenyans are getting tested for HIV now than the case was five years ago.

Overall, in the new study, 72 per cent of adults said they have been tested for HIV, a significant increase from 34 per cent in 2007 with 67 per cent having been tested more than once in their lifetime.

“Women were more likely to have been tested than men at 80 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.

Results from the first KAIS in 2007 showed that the vast majority of HIV-infected persons did not know their HIV status, but also that most were willing to be tested for HIV in their homes. This enabled the establishment and scale-up of home-based counselling and testing in Kenya, which may explain the much higher testing rates since then.

An estimated 260,000 couples were HIV discordant in 2012, meaning one of the partners is infected, which has important implications in the prevention of the disease.

The next step after being tested is to monitor the health status and, if necessary, start antiretroviral therapy (ART) that currently is the most effective intervention for prolonging survival in infected people and for decreasing the likelihood of infecting others.

Medical care

Among all HIV-infected persons aged 15 to 64 years who were aware of their infection and eligible for ART, 88 per cent were on anti-retrovirals, but a significant number remain outside the required medical care.

Of those on anti-retrovirals, says the survey, 78 per cent had achieved what is called viral suppression - which means the virus in their bodies has been reduced to undetectable levels and are unlikely to infect others.

Children are also paying a high price due to HIV with about 104,000 being infected nationally, according to the Kenya National Aids Indicator Survey 2012 released on Tuesday.

This is the first time a national study has been carried out in the country to measure HIV prevalence among children aged 18-months to 14-years.

Findings in the report indicate that about six out of 10 of these children’s parents did not know their child was infected, meaning the child was not placed on treatment.

The report says all children who had been diagnosed with HIV before the current study have been put on treatment.