The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) is set to up-scale its care and support services to people living with HIV/Aids following a grant of US $ 35 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from funding provided by the United States of America’s President’s Emergency Plan for HIV and AIDS Relief.

The five year grant awarded to Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES), a joint project of KEMRI and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is being disbursed in batches beginning with $7 million to expand care and support of people affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya.

Speaking in Nairobi on Thursday, Director of KEMRI, Solomon Mpoke thanked the agency for the donation noting that the amount will go a long way in up-scaling research, care, treatment to millions of people affected by HIV/AIDS in the country.

Mpoke promised that the funds will be used transparently and only for the reasons intended for.

FACES provides comprehensive programme of HIV treatment, care, prevention and support to HIV affected families and vulnerable populations in Nyanza Province in Western Kenya and Nairobi.

The head of the FACES programme in KEMRI and co-director of Research Care Training Program, Elizabeth Bukusi said, “with this funding, we will be able work towards the World Health Organization’s target of universal access, meaning serving at least 80 percent of HIV patients needing care, within our service areas”.

“We are currently seeing about 75,000 patients and that number will at least double with this grant. Plus, we will also expand our service areas. The services provided include not only HIV care, treatment and prevention but also HIV testing and counseling, prevention of mother to child HIV transmission in pregnancy, TB/HIV co-infection treatment and male circumcision services,” said Prof. Craig R. Cohen, a co-director of FACES programme and a reproductive health scientist at UCSF.

The current HIV prevalence rates in Kenya stands at eight percent in adult women and four percent in adult men.

Joseph Kimani