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Nyikal said back then, people were very scared of HIV adding that the scare was useful in making Kenyans more disciplined.
- He said currently, the fear of the virus has gone.
Image: Handout
Seme MP James Nyikal has opined that youths in Kenya are more scared of getting pregnant than of contracting HIV/Aids.
Nyikal said youths do not have a concept of what HIV/Aids really is and that is why they do not fear it.
Speaking on Monday night during an interview with Citizen TV, Nyikal said: "I think that scare HIV came with has gone. The scare came with stigma but now that we have removed the stigma, we need to get into more awareness creation."
Nyikal said back then, people were very scared of HIV adding that the scare was useful in making Kenyans more disciplined.
The legislator who is also a member of the National Assembly Health Committee, added: "Young people don't have a concept of what HIV is. When it started, bodies were being wrapped and nobody was allowed to see when the body was brought."
He went on: "The picture of a person with HIV was not what you are seeing now but that of a thin emaciated person."
Further, he noted that drug abuse among the youths has been normalised despite the fact that drugs are unauthorised.
"Use of drugs is illegal but here is a place we know where people are actually using drugs as if it is okay. Is it okay? It isn't," Nyikal said.
He said the state ought to investigate how drugs get into institutions of higher learning.
"There are a lot of governmental departments that need to be involved to get to the root of this. The social, health and security sectors sector need to be involved," he said.
According to the latest data from the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council, new HIV infections among high school and college-age have remained stubbornly high despite the wide availability of prevention methods including condoms and Prep.
Last year, 33 percent of all new HIV infections were among people aged 15 to 24 years, the NSDCC said.
In total, new infections among the young adults in that age bracket were 7,307 while overall 22, 154 Kenyans contracted the virus last year.
At least 2,225 young adults (15-24 years) died from HIV-related causes last year.
“We are concerned about the adolescents and the young people simply because there are things that affect them that put them at risk of HIV and Aids,” said Joyce Musimbi from NSDCC.
“When we look at HIV within our country, women aged between 10 to 24 years are approximately four times more likely to get infected with HIV than young men. One of the reasons is intergeneration sex,” Musimbi added.