•The Covid-19 pandemic has escalated sexual and gender based violence resulting to increased vulnerabilities and exposure to HIV.
•According to data from the ministry, some 20,363 children below 14 years gave birth in public hospitals in 2019 after being defiled.
Kenya plans to leverage on local manufacturing of health products such as condoms and sanitary pads to control HIV-AIDS among children and young people.
The Health ministry through NASCOP and NACC together with the Council of Governors have agreed to work towards self-reliance on HIV programmes, reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health services.
Health stakeholders held a consultative meeting on Wednesday amid concerns of rising HIV prevalence among the young people, a situation worsened by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has escalated sexual and gender based violence resulting to increased vulnerability and exposure to HIV, delayed HIV diagnosis and potential increase in HIV transmission including mother to child transmission as well as teenage pregnancies.
The concern is that 61 per cent of all new adult HIV infections occur among adolescents and young people within the age bracket of 15-29 years and one in every three ANC clients are girls aged 10-19 years.
The stakeholders appreciate that despite counties’ efforts to eliminate new HIV and syphilis transmission from mother to child, 133 children are still infected with HIV every week.
“We collectively pledge to work towards WHO pre-validation of elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV and syphilis through securing political goodwill and support and community health volunteers for pregnant and breastfeeding women to attend all recommended antenatal and postnatal visits and seek skilled care at birth,” they said.
They also plan to leverage on the championship and platforms of First Lady Margaret Kenyatta through the Beyond Zero initiative to halt new HIV infections among children by promoting leadership, accountability and community actions.
Also on the agenda is ensuring full accountability of both on and off budget resources for HIV response through effective partnership coordination frameworks.
In a joint communiqué, they noted that the expected rollout of Universal Health Coverage that seeks to protect Kenyans from catastrophic health expenditure and anticipated success in the safe roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine calls for commitment to urgent action.
According to data from the ministry, some 20,363 children below 14 years gave birth in public hospitals in 2019 after being defiled.
The youngest mothers were aged 10 years, which means some victims were impregnated as early as at age nine.
The figures, released by NACC chair Angeline Siparo, showed thousands of the children were also infected with HIV.
"The same data showed us that for the girls aged 15-19, a total of 378,665 had been attended to in our health facilities as pregnant mothers," Siparo said in a statement on Wednesday.
Analysis of the data suggests most HIV positive children between 10-19 years were infected through sex rather than at birth.
"In 2019, the council noted with a sad note that a total of 6,247 children and adolescents aged 10 to 19 were newly-infected with HIV," Siparo said.
The Ministry of Health says deaths from HIV-complications in this age bracket are also growing.
In 2019, deaths among children and adolescents accounted for 21 per cent (4,333) and 11 per cent (2,275) of all Aids-related deaths respectively.
Edited by Henry Makori