Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 569494,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/569494/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 190,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "However, Sen. Leshore is concerned that we have effective structural setting at the county level that will be under the county government and that will specifically deal with HIV/AIDS prevalence in specific counties, because the prevalence varies from county to county. From the figures that we had at the Ministry of Medical Services, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in a place like Homa Bay County and along the lakeshore, tended to be much higher than elsewhere. On the major routes for transportation; for example, from Mombasa to the border in Malaba and in Busia, the centres where transporters tend to stop at night before they proceed with their journeys, also tended to generate a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Thirdly, there is a tendency to have much more HIV/AIDS pandemic in urban areas than rural areas. Those variations, therefore, must be taken into account when funds for fighting HIV/AIDS scourge are being disbursed to the counties. That means that the devolved NACC, in terms of the resources that they will get for fighting the HIV/AIDS, will not necessarily receive the same resources. However, they will receive resources in line with the degree of prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Madam Temporary Speaker, there is a second issue. One of the most important frontline initiatives in fighting HIV/AIDS is information and prevention. People must be educated about the disease so as to avoid catching HIV itself. At this point, county governments do not really have good programmes for health education and awareness at the county level. Awareness and education is still a national function. It is important to develop the capacity of county governments, especially given that health is devolved to have the capacity for awareness and prevention. Preventive healthcare in the province of public health is in the hands of county governments. You will not deal with HIV/AIDS pandemic as an isolated public health issue. It must be properly integrated into public health so that the awareness for preventive healthcare being carried out, targeting HIV/AIDS, should be part and parcel of public health awareness for all other diseases. As Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale will confirm in his profession, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is also accompanied by other opportunistic diseases which have weighed very heavily on our health expenditure. Such diseases as Kaposi’s sarcoma afflicts most people who have HIV/AIDS. It means, therefore, that if funds will be made available to fight HIV/AIDS, then we must also avail funds to fight these opportunistic diseases. This is because when we give people ARVs when they are already suffering from these opportunistic diseases, we might not be doing a lot of good. We must deal with the opportunistic diseases while at the same time dispensing ARVs. Madam Temporary Speaker, the ability of those who are afflicted by HIV/AIDS to continuously find out their viral loads will very much depend on the presence of laboratories with proper equipment for testing viral loads for patients. One of the things that happened recently when counties got this central Government led equipping of facilities, is that much attention was given to the major known transmittable diseases and those non-communicable ones like cancer, diabetes and so on. It is assumed that in the era of HIV/AIDS, we have developed capacity in The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}