Not a single US dollar for condoms: Inside Kenya's rising HIV and STI risks
Kenya has an annual condom demand of 400 million pieces, while the government distributes about 200 million.
What you need to know:
- Decades of donor-funded condom access collapse, exposing Kenya’s fragile HIV prevention system to rising risks.
- As free supplies vanish, soaring prices push condoms out of reach for Kenya’s most vulnerable populations.
For more than two decades, the condom on the counter at a local bar, the dispenser on a university bathroom wall, and the packet quietly passed across a clinic counter did not cost what it should have. The United States government was paying. That has now stopped.
Kenya is facing a condom shortage, with hospitals, clinics and drop-in centres running out of stock. The impact is falling hardest on women, young people and sex workers.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed a stop-work order freezing all United States foreign assistance. Within weeks, USAid, which had financed Kenya’s condom supply for more than two decades, halted procurement and distribution entirely. Three weeks later, International Condom Day on February 13 passed without the usual distribution drives across counties. Areas with high HIV prevalence reported stocks that could last only six months if carefully managed.
It is now clear this was not a temporary pause. The US Department of Health and Human Services’ 2027 budget, currently before Congress, makes the position explicit. It proposes a $4.3 billion cut in global health spending and names Kenya directly, stating that the United States will no longer fund “the provision of condoms or contraception in Kenya. The United States should not pay for the world’s birth control,” it said.
The Sexual Risk Avoidance Programme and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programme are to be eliminated. More broadly, the US is scaling back prevention funding and shifting towards abstinence-based approaches.
The administration is also restructuring the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief. It is replacing thousands of small grants to nongovernmental organisations with direct government-to-government agreements. The budget argues that under the previous model, only 40 per cent of funds went to service delivery, including medication, testing, commodities and health workers, while 60 per cent was absorbed by administrative costs and complex supply chains.
Whatever the politics, the gap in Kenya is real and widening. The country has an annual condom demand of 400 million pieces, while the government distributes about 200 million. The remaining 200 million has been filled by donors, with USAid as the main funder. Kenya’s condom programme requires Sh1.118 billion annually, yet there is a shortfall of Sh803 million, about 71.9 per cent of the total need. That gap is now unfilled.
There are 17,854 condom distribution points across Kenya, and 84 per cent are located in bars. These outlets serve millions of Kenyans, including sex workers, young people and low-income earners. Peninnah Mwangi, director of the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme, previously distributed up to 100,000 condoms daily in Nairobi alone. The USAid shutdown ended that overnight.
The shortage is already being felt in people’s pockets. A pack of three condoms that sold for Sh150 three years ago now costs Sh600. For a sex worker earning Sh500 per client, a single pack now costs more than one session. According to the Ministry of Health, condom use remains high, but supply is not keeping pace with daily demand, and the gap is widening by the week.
Health data is already pointing to a worrying trend. Between July 2025 and January 2026, Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Kenya screened 5,000 clients for sexually transmitted infections across clinics in Parklands, Kangundo Road and Mathare. Of those tested, 300 were diagnosed with syphilis, 290 with gonorrhoea and 250 with chlamydia, a total of 840 cases over six months. About 90 per cent of those presenting with symptoms tested positive, with syphilis accounting for a significant share.
By February 2026, AHF Kenya warned that the country faced a deficit of 250 million condoms annually, with only 150 million available against an estimated need of 400 million. Distribution has been declining since 2019, dropping from over 78 million to 55 million condoms by the end of 2025. “There has been an increase in STIs worldwide. PrEP doesn’t prevent syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhoea, but condoms do,” said Calsine Onditi of AHF Kenya.
Terri Ford, AHF’s chief of global advocacy and policy, warned that HIV infections could rise if the trend is not reversed. “Without an immediate course correction, HIV will soon follow. Each condom used helps safeguard decades of progress in the global HIV response and avoids far costlier setbacks. Sustaining HIV prevention and reversing rising STIs does not require new scientific innovations; it requires political will, sustained investment, and a renewed commitment to ensure condoms are free or affordable and widely available to those who need them most,” she said.
“Condoms still work. We have the proven formula to stop HIV/Aids after 40 years, get tested, get treated, use condoms. It’s as basic as that. We can’t stop HIV/Aids without condoms. The continued spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections is not a failure of science; it’s a failure of leadership and commitment to prevention.”
Kenya’s free condom programme was launched in 2001 to contain the HIV epidemic and was built largely on donor support. It did not fully prepare for a scenario where that support would end. The Trump administration’s 2027 budget requests $111.1 billion in discretionary health spending, a cut of $15.8 billion, or 12.5 per cent, from 2026’s. The savings are being redirected inwards under what the administration calls the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
These include $19 million for nutrition services at American health centres, $57 million for food safety, $55 million for infection prevention at the Centres for Disease Control, and $20 million for a Chronic Care Telehealth programme. The shift prioritises domestic health spending, with no clear provision for countries that built key public health programmes on American support.
