1.3 Million Kenyan Adults Living With HIV/AIDS: Homabay County Leading

A new report has revealed that about 1.3 million adults are HIV|AIDS positive with women recording the highest number.

The survey conducted by the Kenya Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (KENPHIA) 2018 revealed that 1.3 million(4.9 percent) adults in Kenya are HIV positive with the number of infected children standing at 139,000(0.1 percent).

More women are living with HIV|AIDS as compared to men. In fact, women are as twice as infected as men according to the new findings.

“HIV prevalence was twice as high among women at 6.6 percent (95 percent CI: 6.0percent -7.1percent), compared to men at 3.1percent (95percent CI: 2.7percent-3.5percent).”The report added.

“For both sexes combined, HIV prevalence peaked among adults aged 45-49 years. However, among adults, HIV prevalence was consistently higher among women than men across all the age groups”.

The report notes that new HIV infections have reduced to 0.14 percent per year, 0.15 percent among women and 0.13 percent among men.

There was a very small difference between boys and girls. “There was no difference between girls and boys: HIV prevalence was 0.7 percent among girls and 0.8 percent among boys.”

How counties are ranked in terms of HIV/AIDS prevalence.

Counties in the lake region are seen to have a higher number of HIV infections as compared to other counties.

Homabay still tops the list with about 19.6 percent of HIV Infections. Kisumu comes second with 17.5 percent with Siaya and Migori having 15.3 and 13.0 percent of the infections respectively.

HIV prevalence rate in other counties was a bit lower with Turkana topping the Rift Valley region. Here is how the rates stood;

Nairobi stood at 3.8 percent, Mombasa 5.6 percent, Nyeri 5.1percent, Uasin Gishu 5.5percent, Kajiado 4.6percent, Turkana 6.8 percent and Kiambu 1.1 percent in terms of HIV prevalence rate.

Garissa county data could not be verified since a number of respondents did not give their feedback hence a lower record in the North-Eastern regions. Garissa County recorded only 0.1 percent of the HIV prevalence.

Wajir and Mandera both recorded 0.2 percent while Marsabit and Isiolo recorded 1.2 and 2.2 percent respectively

National HIV prevalence stood at 4.9 percent which reveals that the Nyanza region recorded way above the average. More infections are recorded in rural areas than in urban centers.

The survey was carried out between June 2018 and February 2019 where a total of 34,610 individuals participated.

READ: Top 10 Counties With the Highest HIV Prevalence in Kenya – Nyanza Leads