100,000 new cases expected by year's end

Some 100,000 Kenyans may be infected by the HIV virus by the end of this year if the annual average infections rate is anything to go by.

“The annual rate of infection is about 100,000 persons, of which 13,000 are children, 53,000 women while the rest are men,” National Aids Control Council (Nacc) Coast regional coordinator Julius Koome told a forum in Mombasa.

Mr Koome told the meeting with religious leaders that 60,000 people lived with the HIV virus in Mombasa County alone. In total, 1.6 million people are living with the virus in Kenya.

He lamented that the war against Aids in the region was complicated by drug abuse.

“Drug takers use of the same needle to inject themselves and this is facilitating the spread of the HIV virus,” he said.

Mr Koome told the meeting on Friday: “Even worse, more children are getting into drug abuse. Out of every 10 injecting drug users (IDUs), six are children barely through with their primary school education.”

DRUG ADDICTS
Mombasa County currently has 12,000 drug addicts using syringes, out of which 18 per cent are living with HIV.

“More and more children are getting into drugs and this is a major concern to us as most of them end up dropping out of school besides contracting the HIV virus due to the sharing of needles,” Mr Koome said.

He said they were investigating claims that boda boda riders were using free transport to lure schoolgirls into early sex.

Mombasa County HIV/Aids Youth Network official Juliet Akumu shocked the forum when he told attendees that a man in Kisauni had died on the spot after injecting heroin into his manhood.

The victim is said to have failed to locate his veins.

Kisauni Deputy County Commissioner Julius Kavita said there were more IDU cases in Bamburi Mwisho and Mtopanga.