STORY By FLAVOUR AWUOR
Essential drugs are stuck in a warehouse in Nairobi as HIV patients miss their doses, putting their lives in grave danger. It is a shocking case of adversity amid plenty as an emergency consignment of medicines worth Sh4.4 billion is available but cannot be accessed by those who badly need them.
The delay has been felt since last year following a 90-day foreign aid freeze by American President Donald Trump after he won the November election and boisterously started his second four-year term. A severe shortage of the life-saving medicines is being felt in health clinics countrywide.
The HIV drugs were to be distributed to the hospitals nationwide in January. This was stalled as President Trump's aid suspension took effect on January 20. The drugs cannot be released as the Ministry of Health is waiting for the National Treasury to allocate Sh1.2 billion for the distribution to the counties.
Medicines worth Sh3.88 billion, which are part of the United States President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), are stuck at the Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies warehouse as patients scramble for the lifesaving medication.
Should the drugs not be released on time, there will be terrible consequences, including more children getting infected by HIV. It is a mockery of health service delivery to have stocks of drugs that would-be beneficiaries cannot get.
This is disappointing as Kenya has the seventh-largest number of people living with HIV in the world, some 1.4 million, according to health experts. Pepfar funds 40 per cent of the country's HIV drugs and other supplies.
The clampdown by President Trump on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has left a huge gap in Kenya's HIV management. The most affected areas include the workforce in HIV services to which USAID contributed Sh5.8 billion.
The government should take control of the procurement.
MWINGI TIMES for timely and authoritative news.
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