Kenya has received a grant of Sh20.7 billion ($238 million) from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The funds will be used to support the fight against HIV/Aids. Activities to be covered by the grant include provision of anti-retroviral drugs, CD4 reagents, condoms and nutrition supplements.
The funds will also be utilised in provision of nutrition assessments and equipment, cotrimoxazole and HIV/AIDS test kits. The funds will also support the training of service providers and health workers and voluntary male circumcision. “We welcome this funding that is supporting our objective to scale up the number of people under anti-retroviral therapy,” Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich told a media briefing in Nairobi yesterday. “We will continue our efforts to reduce HIV prevalence in the country.”
Mr Rotich said the grant also targets sex workers and drug users, adding that the programs would be implemented by Treasury through the Ministry of Health, non-governmental organisations and the Kenya Red Cross. He said the program would be implemented at the national level, adding that some interventions will however be focused on the most affected 26 counties. The Kenya Red Cross interventions are geographically focused on the 26 counties only. Rotich said the programme would implement an innovative focused “hot spot” intervention in two particular affected counties - Homa Bay and Mombasa.
Kenya has 39 million people according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ (KNBS) 2009 population census.Two HIV/AIDS indicator surveys conducted in 2007 and 2012 reported prevalence rates of 7.2 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively in the general population.
