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{
    "id": 569504,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/569504/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 200,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Musila",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 94,
        "legal_name": "David Musila",
        "slug": "david-musila"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I also stand to join fellow Senators in supporting this important Motion, and also in the same vein, congratulate my friend, Sen. Leshore for bringing this matter to us once again. It is 31 years ago since the outbreak of HIV/AIDS scourge in this country. Precisely, this was in 1984. Madam Temporary Speaker, Kenya, like the rest of the world, joined the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic with a lot of force. In this country, we even declared HIV/AIDS a national disaster. We went ahead to do many things, for example, HIV/AIDS testing and education, among other things. I can remember that even at places of work throughout the country, there was a committee on HIV/AIDS. Even in rural areas, there were cells of committees promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS. Regrettably, the momentum which started very well appears to have died sadly. There was a time when about 700 cases of HIV/AIDS related deaths per month were reported in this country. Now, the cases have gone down. I believe that if the force with which we started the exercise continued until now, we would be very near to making our country an HIV/AIDS free society. Somehow, the momentum was lost. Nowadays, nobody talks about the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it used to be. The only thing closer to HIV/AIDS warning that we see is the advertisement of trust condoms on televisions. This has happened after devolving health functions. As previous speakers have said, the idea of devolving health services was to reach the population down at the grassroots level. What is more important at this age and time than reaching out to the counties concerning issues of HIV/AIDS? As I said, HIV/AIDS testing is almost non-existent. Supply of the ARVs drugs in the country is very erratic. As a result, opportunistic diseases like Tuberculosis (TB) have sprung up and even become more killers than other diseases. Thanks to the allowance of the HIV/AIDS scourge to continue in this country. One would ask himself or herself; why would we rely on donor funding for issues of national disaster like HIV/AIDS? I said this because the ups and downs of promotion or creating awareness about HIV/AIDS depend on the supply of donor funds. When donor funds are non-existent, we forget about HIV/AIDS. It is high time we revived – with a lot of energy – the issue of creating awareness about HIV/AIDS, testing and ensuring that all people have access to testing facilities so that they know their status and, consequently, present themselves for treatment. I strongly believe that if we had continued in the manner in which we had started from the beginning, we would have gone very far by now. The NACC did a very good job from the beginning. I had a discussion with some members of the body regarding the attitude of not moving as fast as they used to do. The answer was that they had no funds. It appears like the Government has, sort of, given up 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."
}