$70 million boost will help fight AIDS in Kenya

Nov 7 2006

Kenya has been given $70 million from the Global Fund to fund programmes providing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people living with HIV.

According to the latest government statistics, the east African country has an estimated 1.3 million people living with the virus despite the prevalence for AIDS dropping from 14 percent in 2000 to 6.9 percent in 2006.

In June this year Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki promised the government would start providing free ARVs to government hospitals and health centres, and currently 120,000 people are receiving the life prolonging drugs.

However there are not enough ARVs in public health centres and many Kenyans who live on less than one dollar a day cannot afford to buy the drugs in private hospitals.

The three year grant is the second phase of funding from the global body, which leads in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Kenya's share will be 29 percent of the total HIV/AIDS funds approved in the second phase worldwide.

The Global Fund was established in 2004 and is the largest international financier of efforts to control malaria and tuberculosis and ranks among the top three funders of AIDS programmes.

This latest funding represents a follow-up to a three year $37 million grant that ended this year amid concerns that Kenya had submitted audit documents too late to receive a final $10 million disbursement.

Sub Saharan Africa has 14.9 million of the world's estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV and accounts for about half of the 2.8 million AIDS related deaths.

The grant, along with other efforts by the Kenyan government is expected to go a long way to improve the lives of those affected with the virus and in preventing the spread of HIV.

The Global Aid Fund reaches out to 63 countries and the grants are aimed at providing life prolonging drugs for AIDS to 200,000 people and treating 400,000 TB patients among others over a 5 year period.

Some new methods of combating these diseases include the allocation of 11.5 million bed nets that are treated with insecticide for preventing malaria along with new developments taking place in the field of treating patients suffering from drug resistant TB.

Kenya will also now be able to make testing and counseling services available along with drugs to HIV infected mothers, infants and medical care workers.