Study: Drunk sexing kills more Kenyans than drunk driving

Alcoblow                  PHOTO: COURTESY

By GATONYE GATHURA

Alcoblow, now back on the roads in a big way, could save tens of thousands of Kenyans from HIV infection as it turns out ‘drunk sexing’ is killing more people than drunk driving.

In the last two decades, approximately 69,000 Kenyans were infected with HIV with 18,000 of them dead from the condition, numbers that have been attributed to irresponsible drinking. It is estimated that there are about 90,000 new infections annually and about 50,000 deaths.

Now medical researchers want interventions that could help Kenyans cut down on alcohol consumption put in place as a measure to cut down on new HIV infections and speedy progression to Aids.

Such include the ‘Mututho law’ which has cut down on drinking hours and the alcoblow which could reduce drunkenness among driving patrons.

“A Sh100,000 fine for drunk-driving is no Christmas carol and now I prefer my tipple at the local where I am unlikely to stray,” says James Cheruiyot, who lives in Doonholm, Nairobi.

Cheruiyot says he holds a grudge against Mututho for his punitive law, and now Transport  Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau for his dance with the alcoblow.

Casual sex

Cheruiyot, who works for a medium sized alcohol distributing company in Nairobi, is among a significant number of Kenyans who wrongly believe drunk or not, the “car will always know the way home”.

But new evidence shows this kind of thinking and impaired decisions is the cause of many risky sexual activities that are fueling HIV infections.

On Wednesday, researchers from New York University, University of Pittsburgh and the National Institutes of Health, all in the US, warned that alcohol abuse is responsible for 13 per cent of new HIV infections in Kenya.

Just like a drunk driver may ignore a climbing lane for the fast one, the researchers, led by Dr R Scott Braithwaite of New York University, say a drunk is most likely to opt for casual sex, not using a condom, and forget to take medication when already HIV positive.

“Failing to take HIV medicines as required may increase transmission risk by elevating viral load, and may simultaneously increase one’s disease progression to Aids,” says Dr Braithwaite in the study published in the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Risk factor

Using data provided by the UNAIDS, the researchers, through advanced computer modeling, concluded that if Kenyans reduced unhealthy alcohol consumption by about a half (45 per cent) they could bring down the rate of new infections by the same margin.

“If an effective strategy to promote responsible drinking in Kenya had been adopted 20 years ago, some 69,858 new HIV infections and 17,824 Aids related deaths could have been avoided,” says the study.

If such a strategy is adopted today on a national scale, then it would reduce new infections and deaths by a similar margin in the next 20 years.

“Unhealthy alcohol consumption has been identified as a risk factor in HIV infection and transmission in most African countries including Kenya,” says Dr Nicholas Muraguri, head of a regional UN project on mother to child HIV transmission.

With increasing evidence on the threat drunks pose to the rest of society in HIV transmission, it may be just a matter of time before they are categorised among what civil groups call “Most at Risk Populations or (MARPS)”. This could see them being categorised as MARPS, a group which includes prostitutes, prisoners and injecting drug users.

John Mututho, chairman at the National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Nacada) may be the man these researchers are looking for.

On his appointment, Mututho vowed to make Kenya a sober nation, unknowingly a development that could give a big boost to the fight against HIV. The law is on his side.

The Alcoholic Drinks Control Act, 2010, orders a barman or his agent to expel from a drinking place any person who is drunk and disorderly, violent, riotous or quarrelsome.

“A licensee who permits any drunkenness leading to violent, quarrelsome or riotous conduct to take place on the premises to which the licensee relates commits an offence,” says the law.

Mututho could stretch this law further to indict such a person on the grounds that they are bound to make disorderly sexual decisions and expose self and others to possible HIV infections. In that case they must be expelled before they drive on the wrong side of morality.