Kenya seeks Sh35b from Global Fund for health system support

Kenya has reached out to the Global Fund with a request of Sh35.5 billion for healthcare.

The submission was made on Tuesday through the Kenya Coordinating Mechanism chaired by Health Principal Secretary Julius Korir.

The fund is expected to help in the fight against tuberculosis, provide support in HIV programmes, malaria, as well other interventions in Resilient, Sustainable Health Systems, for the period 2018 to 2020.

“Most of the grant will be used to procure commodities and lifesaving medicines for HIV, TB and Malaria,” read a statement from the ministry.

The fund was in line with requests from county governments, non-governmental organisations, faith-based organiations, among other formal and informal stakeholders who made a joint application.

The Joint Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee and the Inter-Agency Coordinating Committees for HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, provided guidance and oversight during the writing process of the Funding Request. It is barely a month after the US government announced it has stopped a Sh2.1 billion funding to Kenya’s health support.

The move was prompted by an audit query of Sh5 billion which the Ministry of Health could not fully account for.

A big chunk of the funds was meant for the Jubilee government’s high profile free maternity programme.

But the cut is expected to affect more of Kenya’s HIV and Aids programmes.

Between 2003 and 2016 the Global Fund had signed 16 grants worth Sh89.6 billion (USD 896 million) with Kenya: “Through the Global Fund and other partners close to 1.1 million persons living with HIV are on life saving drugs.”

Similarly, over 13.6 million nets have been distributed and over 800,000 patients have been diagnosed and treated for TB, and another 600,000 have been put on isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT).