A new study has shown that 8.3 percent of gay male Nairobi university students are HIV-positive. There are lessons to be learned here for both homosexual and heterosexual Kenyans.
Firstly, HIV has not vanished. It is still widespread in Kenya with 3.1 percent of all men (15-49 year old) HIV positive. That means that around one in 30 sexually active men in Kenya are HIV-positive. HIV is a risk for everybody.
Secondly, the risk is heightened by the spread of drug resistant gonorrhoea in Nairobi. If you have an STD, your chances of contracting HIV are much higher. Therefore the prevalence of HIV in Kenya is likely to rise sharply in coming years.
Thirdly, HIV is still a disease that you have to live with permanently. Anti-retroviral drugs can reduce the viral load in your body to almost zero but it will come back if stop taking the drugs. And the US government is likely to soon phase out the Pepfar programme, which means that we will have to pay for anti-retroviral drugs rather than getting them for free. Can you afford that?
So we should all be super-careful about how we manage our love lives.
Quote of the day: "The less men think, the more they talk."
Montesquieu
The French philosopher was born on February 9, 1755
