BY ALICE AWUOR

Kenya has a total of 1.5million people living with HIV, according to data from the National AIDS Control Council. My home county of Migori has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates, at 11.8% with 150,000 people living with HIV.

A third of these people are adolescents and youths below the age of 24.

For the past couple of months, we have been seeing news reports about the shortage of shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at various facilities in the country, both at the community level and at the referral level.

Young people and everyone living with the virus are currently facing an uncertain future since their life is at risk due to the shortage of this medication.

We are already witnessing the effects of the shortage since many patients are now reporting being issued with less medication contrary to the past where they used to get enough medication to last them three months.

This has led to more regular visits to the facilities, which is not advisable nor healthy for the patients living with the virus this is due to their fragile nature and predisposition to the Coronavirus disease.

As I write this, I know of a young girl from my village aged 17 and is living with virus. The last time she visited the local health facility for her medication, she was shocked to receive only two weeks’ worth of ARVs.

The nurses told her that they were trying to conserve the medicine so that more people can get it. This has put a lot of fear and a lot of stress into the young girl’s life since she isn’t sure of getting medication upon returning back after the two weeks and yet her life depends on this medication.

It has come to our attention that the national government is not able to pay the taxes required for the release of ARVs drugs stuck at port. 

The national government should put the lives of Kenyans first and quickly settle the issue at the port of Mombasa where ARV drugs have been held for months over a tax dispute.

Ms Awuor is a NAYA youth advocate in Migori County