• NACC says 20 counties allocated between Sh1 million and Sh4 million while nine counties did not allocate any money.
• Siaya among counties that have no budget for HIV/Aids this financial year.
Image: LAMECK BARAZA
The Siaya county government has disputed a report by the National Aids Control Council that the county allocated no funds to the disease this financial year.
The NACC report released in April shows some counties did not allocate any money to HIV/Aids this year.
But Siaya CEC for Health Dorothy Owino said HIV is a priority for the county.
“NACC has not discussed with the county or interrogated our budget and we, therefore, declare the report untrue and misleading,” Owino told journalists on Tuesday.
The report shows the total allocation by counties is Sh210.4 million, with only five counties allocating more than Sh10 million.
Six counties allocated between Sh5 million and Sh10 million, 20 allocated between Sh1 million and Sh4 million. Nine counties did not allocate any amount.
Kilifi allocated Sh59.3 million, the highest amount, while Siaya and other eight counties did not allocate any amount.
“Achievement of epidemic control is our goal. We have allocated Sh4 million on prevention and quality assurance besides Sh30 million dedicated to specific county staff on HIV program,” the CEC said.
Stakeholders noted there was a significant reduction in HIV-related deaths between 2013 and last year, with figures dropping from 58, 465 to 28,214.
They noted that some counties were yet to allocate any funding and that the combating HIV/Aids is heavily dependent on donors.
The experts have noted that little or lack of allocation for HIV/Aids treatment and prevention will hamper the delivery of universal health care in the counties.
In the report, the stakeholders recommended that there was a need to mainstream HIV/Aids response by establishing Aids control units in all departments as well as working towards establishing an HIV kitty backed up by an HIV law.
According to a report released in London by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) last year, new infections in Siaya dropped by more than a half since 2011.
“We are very excited about this development although still a lot of work remains to be done,” said Kevin De Cock, head of CDC in Kenya and senior author of the study.
The highest drop in new infections was recorded in the 15-34 age bracket where it declined by a third since 2011.
The report attributed the drop to three factors: a dramatic increase of ARVs coverage since 2011, high rates of male circumcision and natural progression of the disease.
In Siaya, the report says, the number of individuals on ART increased from 2,096 in 2006 to 70,261 in 2016.
The Kenya Demographic Health Survey shows male circumcision in Western Kenya to have increased from 45 per cent in 2008 to 72 per cent in 2014
“In the period in which ARVs and male circumcision coverage increased we observed a decline in new HIV infections by half in those aged 15–64 years,” the study says.
The report, similar to an earlier one presented by De Cock at an international conference in Boston US raised the issue of accuracy of HIV prevalence rates in the region.
Official data put HIV prevalence in Siaya at 25 per cent but recent studies by CDC, Kemri and the Ministry of Health suggest that the per cent could be lower.