Mombasa County has been marked as a hotspot after recording HIV prevalence of 6.2 percent against the National HIV prevalence which is at 4.4 percent.
According to a health report, the region has 1,700 new infections out of which 30 percent are young people aged 24 years and below.
In Mombasa, out of 61,000 people who are infected with the disease, 47,000 are actively using the Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and 90 percent of the population knows about their HIV status.
In mother to child transmission, the county has recorded 11.2 percent.
As of June 2021, Mombasa had recorded a total number of 2,818 adolescents who were pregnant and most of them exposed to the infection.
County health executive member Godfrey Nato said that there is alot which needs to be done in the region to control the high infection numbers.
“As a nation we are working towards bringing 0 percent stigma and 95 percent uptake of ARV drugs by the year 2030 therefore we need to take HIV testing as the first step in the fight against the disease,” he said.
Nato said that viral suppression is the key to reducing mortality and therefore general prevention is important to everyone.
He said that teenage pregnancy has become a serious case due to the high reported numbers, something which should be addressed with urgency because it also contributes to the spread of the infection.
“As a county we have worked with different stakeholders to ensure that there are vibrant awareness programs in the community, we have also developed youth friendly health facilities where young people can access treatment and counselling without fear of stigmatisation,” he said.
“When you look at the reported age bracket, these are people who are in school. The responsibility lies in all of us, the young people should take the necessary precautions and invest in education and not relationships,” he said.
County public health chief officer Pauline Oginga said that the new infections among youths is an alarming figure and that teenage pregnancies have been reported among girls as young as 15 years and below.
Oginga said that there is the use of Postinor two (P2) where young people get them over the counter as a way of preventing the early pregnancies but that is not a lasting solution because it does not prevent someone from getting the diseases,”
“When you look at our data from 2017, there have been an increase of infections among girls which later decreased, the sex debut reduced to as low as 10 years old, there is also an increase of over the counter Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PREP) services among youths which help in prevention and high usage of self test kits but after some months, they test positive,” she said.
Use of drugs was also pointed out as one of the main causes of high infections, Reach Out Centre Trust director Abdulrahman Taib said that this is a big challenge because drug addicts are three times at risk of being infected.
“The use of drugs impacts directly on the increase of HIV therefore it is important for drug addicts to understand information on how to prevent themselves. That is why as an organization we are helping them in accessing testing services, treatment and doing home based care for them to come back to their normal way of living,” he said.
Risper Kengere, a member of coast sex workers alliance said that there is information about HIV but it has not been emphasized.
“Youths ignore alot of information being passed to them, more sensitization and awareness needs to be done, youths should take into consideration every information being passed to them to save their lives and lives of others,” she said.
