Role of Law in Reducing HIV infections in Mombasa and Kilifi Counties

KELIN with support from the Commonwealth Foundation conducted a dialogue forum, which was a platform where County officials, healthcare workers, persons living with disability, people living with HIV, members of key affected populations (Injecting Drug Users, male & female sex workers), law enforcement officers, and a judicial officer discussed key issues affecting People Living with HIV (PLHIV).

The key issues highlighted were;

1. The need to map persons with disabilities in Kilifi County living with HIV to offer them needs oriented interventions and exploring means of alleviating poverty.
2. The need to ensure that drugs for opportunistic infection such as TB do not run out of stock in Mombasa County which had been experienced in Mombasa County and to ensure that the purchase, supply and the delivery chain are efficient and effective enough to avoid this stock out.
3. The need to partner with private health care providers to ensure continuity of services whenever CD4 and Viral loads machines owned by government to ensure continuity of services.
4.  Partnering on common problem areas between both county governments to address these problems wholesomely and more comprehensively. The problems include: sex tourism, drugs and child prostitution among others.

With these as the emerging issues and the National AIDS Control Council pushing for county ownership of the HIV response, addressing the legal barriers has become more important than ever as evidenced by the findings of the study conducted by Global Commission on HIV & the Law.

Calling upon all those responsible to ensure the rights of those living with HIV are upheld, Abbas Khamis Abdalla, an addiction counsellor, said: “Natumai kupitia hii warsha ilio andaliwa na KELIN kuhusu haki za wanao ishi na virusi vya HIV itadumishwa kwa sirikali na pia katika hospitali na pia vituo vya kupeana huduma kwa wakenya kwa ujumla ili walio athirika wawe na afya bora na tuweze kuzuia mambukizi mapya katika jamii.“

At the end of the discussions, the various stakeholders and the county assembly officials committed to implementing various recommendations suggested and also agreed to ensuring continuity of deliberations with other stakeholders to ensure an effective HIV response in Mombasa and Kilifi counties. The county dialogue  report will be available on the website in due course.