Primary health care is key to ending HIVAids threat by 2030

A nurse takes blood samples from a patient for screening at Kasarani Primary School on February 4, 2023. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

I remember vividly the first time I came face to face with the magnitude of the ravaging HIV epidemic in Kenya. It was inn 2001 and I was a first-year medical student making my first foray into the medical wards at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. The last cubicle was not for the faint-hearted. Majority of the patients there had what was then known as full blown Aids. It was heart-wrenching to see first-hand the pain and suffering caused by HIV. In those days, lifesaving anti-retroviral medications were not readily available. They were too expensive. People Living with HIV (PLHIV) would be diagnosed and placed on septrin and literally wait to die. Millions lost their lives.

2003 marked a watershed moment in the fight against HIV. President George W. Bush established the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). Over the next 20 years, the US government invested 8 billion dollars in Kenya. Pepfar working in partnership with the Government of Kenya has saved thousands of lives through supporting life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART) for nearly 1.3 million men, women and children.