AEGiS-IFRC: Living with the virus in Kenya

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Living with the virus in Kenya

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 13 July 2000

Eight-year-old Patrick is one of Kenya's luckier HIV/AIDS orphans, because he has found a home in a private hospice called Nyumbani (home in Kiswahili) just outside Nairobi, which cares for some 60 children. There are currently an estimated 730,000 HIV/AIDS orphans in Kenya and that number is set to rise, according to UNAIDS, since Kenya has the fifth largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Only four countries - South Africa, India, Ethiopia and Nigeria, all of which have far bigger populations, have higher rates.

The evidence of HIV/AIDS is all too obvious: in Kisumu, Western Kenya, dozens of houses lie empty and abandoned, their former inhabitants buried in the plot outside. Prenatal clinics report that 30 percent of all pregnant women who attend are HIV positive. Jacqueline Naulikha, a Kenya Red Cross field officer, works full time counselling HIV/AIDS sufferers in Kisumu. "Poverty lies at the heart of it," she says. "So many women are forced to sell themselves just to bring food home for the family." The problem is made worse in the region by adherence to tribal traditions and customs such as wife inheritance". Jane Ochieng runs a women's self-help group: "We support those whose husbands have died of AIDS and who have refused to be inherited, because they are under enormous pressure from their communities."

Nyumbani is one of the few places in Kenya Jacqueline can turn to in an effort to find a home for abandoned or HIV positive orphans. Reliant on donations since it was founded in the early 1990s, Nyumbani has also extended its care programme so that HIV positive infants can stay in their own communities. The tragic fact is that some mothers who have the virus abandon their children, not realising that only one out of four babies who test positive at birth will actually be infected.

In Nairobi, the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) began a counselling service for HIV/AIDS sufferers in 1991. "People either come voluntarily or are referred to us for tests. We facilitate these tests, then we follow up with advice and support sessions until people come to terms with their illness," says Rahab Kairo of the KRC. "Our main aim, if they test positive, is to reduce further infection and encourage them to look after themselves, for the sake of their families."

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