New partnership sets-up HIV testing healthcare initiative to reach into the homes of East Africa
Last updated 4/21/2009 9:17:32 AM
HIV testing healthcare initiative to reach into the homes of East Africa
Two million people in western Kenya will receive home-based HIV/AIDS testing and counselling over the next two years.
Named as the ‘Health at Home', the initiative was announced by Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GBC) and the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
PEPFAR has committed up to $2.7 million and GBC's member companies will match that amount, resulting in $5.4 million for this two-year Kenya initiative.
As many as 70% of Kenyans do not know their HIV status, according to Professor Alloys Orago, director of Kenya's National AIDS Control Council.
The partnership will also bring TB screening and malaria bed nets into the homes of millions of Kenyans in a remote region with difficult access to health care.
The initiative will be implemented by Kenya-based AMPATH (Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare) program, who will work closely with the Kenyan government, the Coalition and PEPFAR.
If it proves successful, the initiative - being brought to scale by industry competitors working side-by-side in common cause - could serve as a model to be replicated in other AIDS endemic regions of the world.
"To defeat AIDS in Kenya ... I believe it is public-private partnerships like this one that will have a deep and lasting impact on the health," said Prime Minister Odinga.