May 17 2011
IRIN/Plus News reports that "[t]he Kenyan government and rights groups have expressed outrage at a project in western Kenya that is paying HIV-positive women to undergo long-term contraception." James Kamau of the Kenya Treatment Access Movement said "the project was 'wrong, immoral and unethical.' He noted that it contradicted provisions against discrimination in the country's HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 2006. Ministry of Health officials say Project Prevention did not seek the government's authority before beginning its operations, making its activities illegal," according to the article.
Project Prevention Kenya coordinator Willice Okoth "argued that the project's aim was to fill family planning gaps, prevent HIV-related infant deaths and lower the number of orphans in the country" (5/12).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. |