Kenya: adapting to a changing epidemic

27 May 2008

© 2008 Alliance

The Alliance’s implementing partner in Kenya, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK), is adapting its services in line with the country’s changing epidemic. To date, WOFAK had been providing antiretroviral treatment directly to its clients. Now, as increasing numbers of people in Kenya are able to access HIV treatment, WOFAK is looking to transfer more of its clients to this system. WOFAK will then focus its efforts on supporting more people to access and adhere to treatment.

Once started, antiretroviral treatment is a lifetime commitment. By transferring existing clients to government-run schemes, WOFAK will be able to provide greater access to treatment to those who need it, rather than long-term treatment to fewer people.

WOFAK will then turn its attention to supporting communities to access treatment; appropriate follow up care and support in the public healthcare system is hampered by a shortage of trained healthcare workers. WOFAK will also support with monitoring treatment progress, providing counselling and treatment support, and support with barriers to treatment – such as user fees for laboratory tests.

WOFAK plans to learn from Kenyan programmes going through similar processes and from Alliance programmes that have successfully linked community-based treatment with government healthcare facilities, such as the Alliance’s ACER project in Zambia). By the end of December 2008, at least 30 of WOFAK’s clients will have graduated to the public healthcare system.

About WOFAK

In 1993 a group of women, the majority of whom were HIV-positive, founded WOFAK to help women deal with stigma, discrimination and rejection, and to support women who were raising their families alone after their husbands had died. Services have grown to include education, awareness, treatment and home-based care. WOFAK has been an implementing partner of the Alliance since April 2007.