Global Fund: Resumption of HIV funding welcome
That the Global Fund has resumed funding for Kenya’s programme in fighting HIV/Aids is a step in the right direction as it will rejuvenate efforts to curb the disease which has been plaguing the world since the 1980s.
When Kenya was upgraded to a lower-middle income country, donors believed it would be in a position to fund some of the primary sectors including health.
Consequently, funding for programmes such as HIV/Aids were progressively reduced and completely stopped.
Also, financial irregularities saw donors reduce support to a programme that requires continuous effort.
Kenya, alongside Uganda and Mozambique, has the third largest number of HIV epidemic victims in the world.
According to the Ministry of Health, the country in 2019 had 41,416 new cases, with 34,610 among people aged 15 years and above and 6,806 cases in children aged 0-14 years.
Further, 42 per cent of adult infections occurred in adolescents and young people at 14, 410 cases in 2019.
These numbers indicate there is a need to ramp up efforts to address issues that push up the cases.
Kenya has made strides in the area with campaigns and programmes including creating awareness on the disease, provision of antiretroviral drugs and prevention of mother-to-child transmissions.
The introduction of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has also helped, especially with key populations such as sex workers, people who inject drugs and men having sex with men.
The youth fall under key populations but reports indicate they have been left out in many campaigns, as well as their own skewed perceptions about the disease. Other factors that have pushed up numbers in youth include sexual violence.
There is need to give priority to this population in the renewed effort against the disease, especially at a time when stigma and discrimination is rampant.
With the resumed funding, Kenya will be in a better position to address these issues.
However, it also needs to ensure that money set aside for projects is used for just that and not misappropriated for other things, which will lead to donors pulling out again.
The country also needs to address other factors such as gender-based and sexual violence, access to ARVs and other opportunistic diseases to achieve its Strategic Aids Framework of reducing new infections by 50 per cent, to reduce HIV-related mortality by 75 per cent and to reduce stigma and discrimination down to 25 per cent.
