Government to expand HIV/AIDS treatment

The Kenyan government plans to provide antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to 181,000 HIV-positive people by the year 2005, a government statement said. The number of beneficiaries would rise to 250,000 by 2010, it added. Health Minister Charity Ngilu said the strategy would be achieved through the implementation of a National Social Health Insurance Scheme, which the Kenyan parliament is due to debate this year. Ngilu said in a paper on HIV/AIDS presented at a meeting of Kenyan ambassadors that the scheme aimed to ensure quality healthcare to all Kenyans. "The Ministry of Health will utilise the resources allocated to it...to intensify disease prevention activities, improve the quality of health services in public health facilities, build new health facilities and strengthen compliance to health standards by all health providers," she said. According to the minister, the health ministry established 30 new centres for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in public and selected mission hospitals in the last 12 months. The number of HIV testing and counselling centres in all districts had also been increased, she said. Ngilu said one million Kenyans had already died of AIDS while the prevalence of HIV among people aged 15-49 years was seven percent. "The number of people in need of urgent ARVs is estimated at 200,000 people. However, the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy is currently estimated to be 19,000, representing a coverage of only 10 percent. This means 90 percent of Kenyans who urgently needed HIV/AIDS treatment will die," she said. The Executive Chairman of the Kenyan National AIDS Control Council, Patrick Orege, said the HIV prevalence rate had decreased from 14 percent in 2000 to the current seven percent. There were 1.8 million orphans in the country, he added.