State should deploy all tools available to fight teenage pregnancies

Some of the teenage girls who got pregnant during the 2020 Covid-19 school closure period. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Recently, Cabinet Secretary of Health, Susan Nakhumicha, was reported to have said she will not facilitate the availability of condoms to underage Kenyans. She attributed the stance to her 'firm Christian foundations'. She fronted abstinence as a precautionary measure against STDs and pregnancies among teenagers.

Incidentally, her utterances come when Kenya is seeing a rise in HIV/Aids infections for the first time in a decade, according to the 2022 World Aids Day report released in November 2022. The report emphasises that this unprecedented increase is witnessed among children, adolescents and younger people.