Kisumu County has recorded a higher number of people using Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) due to increased access to the drug that prevents HIV infection, a new report shows.
According to the report released on Wednesday by Jhpiego, an international health organisation, the county now has 118 health facilities offering PrEP, up from 62 in 2017.
Kisumu County Aids and STIs Coordinator Eunice Kinyua noted that Kisumu is now counting on the drug to reduce the number of Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV) infections.
“The county health department is counting on PrEP to reduce the number of HIV infections, which will eventually bring down the overall statistics of infected persons nationally,” she said.
The National Aids Control Council (NACC) estimates that 16 per cent of the population in Kisumu is HIV positive.
In 2020, the National Aids and STIs Control Programme (NASCOP) data revealed Kisumu had recorded 4,661 new infections while youths aged between 15 and 24 accounted for most of the new cases.
Public health interventions
The county has for a long time been engaged in a number of public health interventions such as use of condoms, abstinence and use of anti-retrovirals for those already infected to help in the disease management.
In 2017, the lakeside county was among nine devolved units, including Kisii and Migori, that rolled out the use of PrEP in partnership with Jhpiego under the Jilinde research programme in efforts to widen protection from HIV/Aids.
A study in 2016 had revealed that PrEP prevented infections among people who were at high risk of infection such as young girls and women, men who have sex with men and sex workers.
The project aimed at ensuring political donor and community support in making the HIV prevention drug available.
More than 37,000 clients were enrolled in the programme as experts studied the various elements of the drug scale-up.
The drugs were integrated and delivered to 98 sites, including 37 drop-in centres, 11 private health facilities and 50 public hospitals.
In Kisumu County, PrEP was made available in safe places for young women, female sex workers and gay men during their hotspot outreaches.
By the end of the five-year project, Kisumu County had recorded 86 per cent PrEP awareness, with gay men leading at 98.8 per cent while female sex workers followed closely at 94.4 per cent.
“We rolled out community outreach programmes on the use of the drug, leading to its acceptance and use,” said Ms Kinyua.
According to Dr Daniel Were, the project manager, the greatest contribution of the project was jumpstarting PrEP scale-up in most parts of the county.
A number of clients were, however, reported to have discontinued the use of the pills due side effects (44.9 per cent) and access challenges (seven per cent), among other reasons.
“We had more clients at the beginning of the project. The number has, however, gone down, which could mean the counselling offered to the youth could have deterred them from engaging in risky sexual activities,” said Ms Kinyua.
“As people engage more with PrEP and HIV prevention in general, their time off PrEP reduces despite short use durations,” said Dr Were.
Dr Were further said unlike anti-retrovirals, which are taken daily, one can only go for PrEP when they are in need of it.
“When the clients are not engaging in risky sexual behaviour, they do not need to take the pill,” he said.
Dr Were however recommended that counselling before issuance of the pill must address the improper use of the prevention method, including discontinuation and switching to new drugs.
