The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
Kenya: The proposed high-speed railway line from Mombasa to Kigali could activate what health experts see as new HIV hotspots, with the virus hitchhiking its way to new areas.
Health authorities and civil groups from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda are now planning a joint approach to fight the disease across their boundaries, and especially along the transport corridors.
The Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali-Bujumbura-Goma road network, otherwise known as the Northern corridor, has been partially blamed for the high rates of HIV in the region.
National concept
According to the Nairobi-based international NGO, Aidspan, the countries have already submitted an expression of interest to the Global Fund to finance the regional project.
The note prepared in May by the East African Community hopes to access $200 million that has been set aside by the fund for regional programmes.
Writing in the current issue of the Global Fund Observer, Lauren Gelfand says the move has been provoked by the high burden of disease along the existing transport corridors linking the five countries.
Early this month, the National Aids Control Council (NACC) launched The National Strategy on HIV and Aids and STI Programming along Transport Corridors in Kenya.
“This strategy is expected to reach truckers, sex workers, along with the communities they interact with, including border officials, police and the general population,” says Jennifer Wambua, head of communication at NACC.
At the first of five meetings planned for the region, it was proposed in Nairobi that each country should separately develop a national concept note for joint funding from the Global Fund for HIV and tuberculosis and then a mechanism would be worked out to integrate the funds.
The region also wants to harmonise HIV treatment guidelines.
Identify sex workers
But even as health authorities try to reach sex workers, this may be difficult, especially in Nairobi where the county government recently voted to drive them out of the central business district. The move could scuttle an ongoing study funded by the Global Fund to the tune of $100,000.
“The study is trying to understand the behaviour of these high-risk groups and their contribution to the HIV burden,” Helgar Musyoki of the National Aids and STI Control Programme had told Aidspan.
Nascop and other civil groups have been fighting to have sex workers identified and targeted with special HIV programmes but the move by the Nairobi county government to have them evicted could drive them into hiding.
join