More than six million people living with HIV in low and middle –income countries are on antiretroviral treatment, over three million are supported through the US presidents Emergency plans for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) many more are supported through the global fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to which the US is the largest donor Nation to Kenya. The government and the people of united states are proud to partner with government and the people of Kenya to achieve major gains against HIV in a relatively short time frame in support under PEPFAR, the US committed to combating HIV/AIDS in Kenya has grown exponentially each year and in 2011 it exceeded $485m this makes the programme one of the largest PEPFAR recipients in the world and one of the most successful.
Kenya success is that it has placed almost 500,000 on Antiretroviral therapy providing care to over 1.5m people affected by HIV, supporting over 5000,000 orphans and vulnerable children and applying proven prevention interventions in 1.1m pregnancies. The US has joined with UNAIDS and other partners to set a goal of eliminating transmission of HIV from mothers to children by 2015.
This goal is achievable; programmes supported by US through PEPFAR which allowed 114,000babies to be born free of HIV in 2010 alone. Kenya we must embrace smart investments to save more lives, treatment both to prevent infection of others is a key evidence based intervention along with prevention of mother to child transmission, voluntary medical male circumcisions HIV testing and others. Kenya is currently focusing on using its resources to maximize the human impact of our investments and saves more lives.
Investing wisely Kenya will be enabling a generation of people living with HIV to contribute meaningfully to the productivity of their communities. The US is working with the global fund on a reform effort to ensure that all resources contributed to the fund save as many lives a s possible, guided by science we are almost achieving an AIDA free generation in Kenya
