"Kenya and its partners in the fight against HIV have
been urged to integrate responses towards the disease if the East
African country is to make greater progress using minimal resources.
Dr Wanjiru Mukoma, deputy director of Liverpool VCT, said resources
set for fighting HIV are increasingly dwindling, therefore the country
needs to integrate most programs.
"It is no longer viable to have institutions dealing with HIV alone
or family planning. These services must be integrated since offering
them in isolation eats into resources that are becoming scarce each
day," said Mukoma, who was speaking at an HIV forum in Nairobi on
Saturday.
She said besides saving resources, integration of services enables
service providers to be one-stop shops. "This makes it easy for people
to access services. HIV is a health problem and it relates to any other
disease or health issue," she said.
"If you are a woman in reproductive age, you have family planning
needs and you may be at risk of getting HIV and other sexually
transmitted diseases perhaps because of increased alcohol consumption,"
she added.
"All this must be addressed when one visits a service provider for a
particular service. This can be achieved through integration to
eliminate missed opportunities."
Wanjiru noted that HIV funding continues to decrease thus service
providers, be it government or the private sector must change tact on
how they work.
She further observed that to wisely use resources, Kenya and other
countries need to identify its programs that have achieved great success
and scale them up.
"Prevention of mother-to-child infections program and male
circumcision initiative to check HIV infection have had immense success
in Kenya. Such programs need to be scaled-up by channelling more funding
into them instead of starting new ones or continuing to fund some that
are giving little results," she said.
She observed that whereas the bulk of HIV services happen at the
community level through support groups, many countries have not made
efforts in funding support groups.
"There is no funding for support groups in Kenya. The government has
ignored these groups in its programs yet they need support and have
played crucial role in the war against HIV," she noted.
According to Wanjiru, studies have shown that most HIV patients
accept their status and start taking antiretroviral drugs because of the
influence they get from support groups.
"People who have joined support groups are encouraged to disclose
their status, accept it, live positively and take anti-retroviral drugs
than those who receive regular counseling, for instance, in
hospitals,"she said.
Wanjiru advised that Kenya must strengthen its HIV systems at the community level.
"Treatment happens and is distributed through community. That is
where all work that goes into care and support takes place. We have to
invest money in supporting those organizations and people who work at
the community level," she said.
In trying to integrate services, Kenya's government is seeking to
make HIV testing routine to enable people get tested whenever they visit
public health facilities for treatment.
The government has also adopted HIV Testing and Counselling (HTC)
program, which is comprehensive as opposed to Voluntary Counselling and
Testing, where only people were tested to know their HIV status"
My Views:
It indeed is true that there is need for integrated response to HIV,by incorporating HIV programs into existing health systems.
The Kenyan government should develop mechanisms to help reduce theaboutkenyahub both the community and the workplace
Liverpool VCT,Care and Treatment is a Kenyan NGO that continues to do alot good work in response to HIV prevention,care and treatment.
More on the recent HIV forum held in Kenya can be sourced from EnglishNews
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