Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday, November 30, 1999
Rosalind Russell

Amazingly to some, however, the government still refuses to encourage condom use and, despite new measures to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS, the epidemic looks set to continue its deadly march.

In a departure from his usual rambling discourses, President Daniel arap Moi gave a candid speech on AIDS to a national seminar last week and announced the creation of a National AIDS Control Council to coordinate the fight against the disease.

"AIDS is not just a serious threat to our social and economic development, it is a real threat to our very existence, and every effort must be made to bring the problem under control," he told a four-day AIDS awareness symposium which ended on Sunday.

But activists said the speech came a decade too late and did not go far enough. "The president knows his young people are dying in numbers but he still won't use all the ammunition he has," Dr. Khama Rogo, chairman of the Kenya Medical Association, said on Monday.

"We know clearly condom use is a major factor but we are not allowed to say so."

At least two million out of 30 million Kenyans are infected with the HIV virus and infection rates are doubling every month. The disease kills a staggering 500 Kenyans every day.

Lessons Learned From Uganda

In neighboring Uganda, the looming catastrophe threatened by the AIDS virus was recognized as early as the mid-1980s, and mass media and education campaigns to promote AIDS awareness and condom use has helped reverse infection rates.

Kenya has finally started to learn some of the same lessons.

Moi announced that free air time on state radio and television would be given over to AIDS awareness broadcasts, and that AIDS education -- up to now banned from the curriculum -- would begin in all schools and colleges in January.

But the president said that the classes would be based on "culturally acceptable moral values," adding that it would be "improper... to encourage the use of condoms."

While praising Moi's speech as "his greatest ever," Kenyan newspapers criticised him for refusing to budge on the controversial issue of condom use.

They believe that Moi is reluctant to antagonize sections of the powerful church lobby who argue, despite evidence to the contrary, that talking about condom use will encourage youths to have sex.

"What are we expected to do?" said an editorial in the independent Sunday Standard. "Sit back and watch as millions of Kenyans die yet the only known prevention against contracting the HIV virus is the condom?" Donors too were disappointed and said Kenya simply had to use every weapon in its armory in the fight against AIDS.

World Bank country director Harold Wackman urged the government to "lower the inconvenience" of acquiring condoms. He said AIDS had "undermined donor efforts to implement and promote sustainable development."

The disease targets the most active and productive members of the population, and has already been responsible for an estimated 15 percent fall in domestic economic production.

And as productivity falls, the costs go up. More than half the beds in Kenya's over-stretched public hospitals are taken up by AIDS sufferers and the government now spends an estimated $2.7 million each day on dealing with AIDS.
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