HIV/AIDS Testing Campaign in Kenya Successfully Combines Diarrhea and Malaria Prevention. | Voice of America - English
A campaign in Africa to prevent malaria, diarrhea and aids used a unique approach to get a large number of people to test for HIV in a short period of time. It was created by the Vestergaard-Frandsen Company, which creates products to prevent disease in developing countries. The campaign was designed by the company's CEO, Mikkel Vestergaard-Frandsen.
Vestergaard-Frandsensaid that malaria, diarrhea and AIDS affect each other so the company wanted todemonstrate that the prevention of these diseases "is so much stronger unitedthan apart." He said the objective is to test and counsel some 80% of sexuallyactive adults, and testing efforts in sub-Saharan Africa haven't come close tothat. The IPD designer offers Ethiopia's 2.3%, Zambia's 3.4% and Kenya's "inthe region of 10"% as examples. VestergaardFrandsen says getting children to sleep under a bednet has succeeded, but notso with adults, so he decided the company should give out a free bednet at HIVtesting and counseling centers to increase participation. The effort succeeded.The company got 80.2% participation, testing 47,000 people for HIV in a week. Anothergoal of the campaign was to reduce the incidence of diarrhea. But VestergaardFrandsen said the effort is under-funded compared to efforts to treat HIV/AIDS.For example, "If you're the minister of health for Kenya, you can get easily$2,200 per patient per year for second line?treatment, but you can't get fivedollars per patient per year for diarrhea prevention and that's what most ofyour patients die of." So he says it was natural for the company to offer whatit calls a free "CarePack" to encourage more people to come for AIDS testing.The CarePack includes condoms, education materials, long-lastinginsecticide-treated bednets, and water filters which give a family of six EPAstandard water for three years. He says, "It's a huge breakthrough in publichealth to be able to deliver an entire package of basic health intervention?forfamilies without the need for repeat intervention; you do it once and it worksfor years." VestergaardFrandsen says the company partnered with the Kenyan health ministry in alocation in western Kenya with a population of 110,000 people of whom abouthalf were in the targeted group of sexually active people between 15 and 49years old. He says, "We want to publish the datato make it available for everybody to see that this is ground-breaking scienceand this should be used not only in western Kenya but throughout the borders ofKenya and hopefully all over sub-Saharan Africa."