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National Aids Control Council (NACC) has raised concern that 51 per cent of children infected with the HIV virus in Embu county do not have access to anti-retroviral drugs.
Only 513 of the 1,046 children living with HIV in the county have access to the drugs as compared to adults where 5,540 of the 5,132 infected ones get the medicines.
The NACC Eastern region field officer, Kibe Ranji, asked the county and national governments to make sure they avail ARVs to infected persons to stem HIV/Aids related deaths.
Speaking during the county's First Lady's Consultative Forum on HIV/Aids Programme at an Embu hotel, Ranji said availing the drugs would also reduce HIV prevalence in the county, which now stands at 3.7 per cent.
The county had about 518 new adult infections and 14 new child infections in 2013, which Ranji says should be reduced to enable the country achieve at least 50 per cent reduction of all new HIV infections in all counties by 2015.
Ranji attributed increase in new infections among new born babies to HIV positive mothers who do not deliver at hospitals where medical care and drugs can prevent mother-to-child infections.
"HIV-positive women should not deliver at home and risk infecting their newborns. We cannot lower HIV prevalence when women give birth at home," he said.
Ranji called on men to go for HIV testing to reduce new infections and stigma, saying that by 2009, 54 per cent of people in the county had not tested for HIV.
Embu County Executive in charge of Gender, Children and Social Services, Ms Pamela Rita, said they are working to increase health centres and maternity wards so that more women can deliver there.
She reminded women that maternity services are free saying they began a campaign to promote hospital births.
Rita said the county has started a sexual abstinence programme targeting young women aged 15 to 24 years who face the greatest risk of HIV infection.
She said the programme and others targeting women in the fight against HIV/Aids, would be extended to men.
The county executive asked society to change its attitude towards HIV infected people and stop stigmatising. The county will hold a beauty and fashion contest to fight the stigma associated with HIV infection.
Statistics from the NACC indicate that the number of adults living with HIV in Embu county is 9,600 and 1,465 of these are children. In 2013, there were 326 adults and 63 children who died of HIV related complications.
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