Increasing HIV infections among the youth threaten labour force

The future of Kenya’s workforce is at risk as new HIV infections among the youth rise, a regional conference has been told.

New infection trends reveal the youth, young children and married couples form the highest risk groups in the country.

“These mixed epidemic groups now form the most critically affected groups in the country. There is need for HIV prevention programmes to target areas where these groups are most easily found,” said Alloys Orago, the National Aids Control Council director.

Even though infection rates in Kenya have fallen significantly over the last 10 years, stakeholders are worried new infections are threatening the workers of tomorrow.

Some 1,500 peer educators at the fourth National Organisation of Peer Educators (NOPE) conference in Nairobi were told the bulk of the over 166,000 new infections in the country daily affect the three groups most, raising concern about economic productivity.

Employers have been urged to adopt more proactive HIV prevention methods to increase awareness.

“There is compelling evidence that continuing training is needed to maintain peer education programmes in the work place. Prevention, behaviour change communication, and counselling and testing need to be scaled up to stop new infections,” said John McWilliam, the NOPE chairman.

In the last decade, focus was on Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT), but attention has shifted to preventing mother-to-child transmission and encouraging practices such as male circumcision, which have been proven to lower the risk of infection.

Studies among men aged 18-24 years reveal that male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of HIV in Africa.

Peer educators

The conference seeks to promote the role of peer educators and other stakeholders in scaling up prevention.

Although significant strides have been made in improving access to HIV/Aids treatment in the last decade, the rate of new infections remains high.

Global statistics indicate there are 7,400 new cases daily and 33 million people are living with the virus of whom over 90 per cent are in developing countries.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 67 per cent of new infections with six out of 10 people infected being women, the United Nations has said.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that people aged between 15-24 years account for 45 per cent of the global prevalence with half of the new infections among the youth.