2 Million Kenyans Have Not Accessed ARVs For Four Months

There has been a shortage of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in all public health facilities across the country for the last four months.

For four months now, more than 2,000,000 Kenyans living with HIV and AIDS and who rely on public hospitals for the supply of ARVs have been going without the drug.

A few who can afford have been buying them from private health facilities at high prices and those who can’t have opted to go without it putting their lives at risk.

More worrying is the situation that expectant mothers living with HIV and AIDS are now facing with the danger of infecting their babies due to the absence of the drug.

Kenya had made some significant steps in cutting down the mother-to-child HIV infections but the current situation is threatening to demolish all the steps that had been achieved. The government has remained on what might have caused the prolonged shortage.

At the same time, those patients who can have access to ARVs are facing the challenge of accessing Septrin, a drug that must accompany ARVs and one that helps them against other common infections.

As patients continue to suffer, the body that was supposed to procure their medicine is busy looting the funds. It is said that there was a delay in procuring the drugs but investigations are under way after it emerged that funds meant for the drugs might have been stolen.

The patients are now at risk of getting infected with other diseases that are often more dangerous to their weakened immune system than HIV itself.

“We are suffering. It is like we are waiting for death knowing very well that it is not far away. It is traumatizing, not only for us but for our families too,” said Jacklin Wangui, a Kenyan who have lived with the virus since 1998.