Target the youth in HIV campaigns

Kenya joined the globe in marking World Aids Day on Thursday with an overarching message that more must be done to prevent infections, especially among adolescents who are looking more vulnerable each year. This group has in recent times become the focus of HIV and Aids interventions. Among the country’s 1.6 million people living with the virus, 30,000 adolescents are infected each year. Health authorities say that one in every three persons infected with the virus is under 24 years. This rate of infections is far too high, especially when prevalence rates are declining in countries with more advanced economies.

Ever since the condition was first diagnosed 31 years ago, the feeling among younger Kenyans is that HIV is a medical condition rather than the death sentence it once was. This could be one of the reasons why health experts who marked World Aids Day in Mombasa and Meru projected their messaging to the youth. In Likoni, Mombasa, where drug addiction is prevalent and where prostitution is rampant, Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir said they would focus on supplying addicts with methadone to wean them off their addiction, even as sex workers are targeted in HIV/Aids awareness campaigns.