NMS TO END HIV/AIDS IN NAIROBI

City residents have reason to smile after Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) said it is on course to have a Nairobi free of HIV infections, stigma and AIDS-related deaths by 2030.

The pronouncements came amid worrying statistics that showed the city as the highest burden of people with AIDS.

Currently it is estimated that Nairobi has 167,446 residents living with the virus, 12,779 of them being children under 14 years.

Nevertheless, the statistics are nothing to worry about as NMS Health Services Director Ouma Oluga said the city has over the last two decades consistently recorded decreasing HIV prevalence rates from 24.6 percent in 1995 to 5.2 percent at the end of 2020.

He said only 4,446 new infections occurred in the city in 2020 with adolescents and young people contributing only 1,475 of all new infections.

“Notably, in the last two decades Nairobi County has consistently recorded decreasing HIV prevalence rates from 24.6percent in 1995, to 14.4 percent in 2001, to 8 percent in 2013, 6.1 percent in 2017 and down to 5.2 percent by the end of 2020,” Oluga said.

This is despite the fact that Nairobi is facing other factors that put its residents at increased risk of contracting HIV particularly among key populations (KPs) and adolescents and young people (AYP) particularly girls.

The factors include; rapid urbanization, high levels of poverty in ever-growing informal settlements, and lingering stigma and discrimination leading to constraints in accessing health services by these populations.

Sourced from K24 digital