Jhpiego awarded $24M by the United States Agency for International Development
to avert HIV crisis in Kenya's Eastern Province
07 July 2006
Jhpiego, an affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University that improves
health care for women and families in low-resource areas, has been awarded a three-year,
$24,000,000 cooperative agreement by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) to implement the AIDS, Population and Health Integrated Assistance Program (APHIA II)
in Eastern Province, Kenya.
Jhpiego will lead efforts in providing high-quality HIV/AIDS services that
will increase the number of people receiving antiretroviral and prevention of mother-to-child
transmission of HIV services, as well as a wide range of palliative care services. The program
will integrate and improve reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP), tuberculosis, and
selected maternal and child health services at both the facility and community levels.
HIV prevalence rates are lower in Eastern Province than most other provinces.
Given that the full impact of Kenya’s HIV epidemic has yet to be felt in Eastern Province,
Jhpiego and its partners have a unique opportunity to head off and mitigate a potential crisis.
According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2003, 6.1% of women and 1.5%
of men in Eastern Kenya are living with HIV. Yet, with contraceptive prevalence relatively high,
new opportunities to link RH/FP visits and care to HIV services are anticipated.
"By putting HIV at the center of a stronger comprehensive care network that
includes reproductive health and family planning services, it will afford Kenyans in the Eastern
Province every opportunity to access testing, counseling, care and treatment for themselves and
others. This APHIA II Program has the ability to demonstrate how one Kenyan region can prevent
the kinds of dramatic increases in HIV prevalence rates that have been seen in other parts of
the country," explains Dr. Pamela Lynam, Regional Technical Director, East and Southern Africa,
based in Jhpiego’s office in Nairobi, Kenya.
Project activities will include: developing human capacity and the corresponding
systems; expanding services to people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as orphans and vulnerable
children; strengthening community structures and networks to implement behavior change, gender
awareness and community mobilization; and linking facility-and-community based services for
multiple service delivery points of comprehensive care.
The health infrastructure and delivery of services in the Eastern Province
remain weak. To address these issues, and achieve success in its efforts through this program,
Jhpiego has assembled a team of experienced partners, such as African Medical and Research
Foundation, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Family Health International, Program
for Appropriate Technology in Health, and Liverpool VC and Care Kenya, a registered local
Kenyan non-governmental organization.
Leading the APHIA II Eastern Province project under Dr. Lynam’s direction,
Jhpiego has appointed Dr. Kenneth L. Chebet, who has held national and regional health sector
assignments and formerly was Director of the National AIDS and STD Control Program in Kenya,
to the position of Project Director. Dr. William M. Obwaka will serve as Deputy Director. He
brings more than 20 years of hands-on experience in RH/FP delivery, and currently is providing
RH services to all major hospitals in Nairobi. As the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist,
Dr. Ravi M. Ram, trained at The Johns Hopkins University and Harvard, will lead the design and
implementation of M&E activities.
Dr. Chebet comments on his new team, "I am excited to be part of this winning
multi-sectoral team that represents the host government of Kenya, development partners,
researchers, non-government organizations, faith-based organizations and communities in
need—each bringing unique strengths, potential and experiences."
About Jhpiego
For nearly 40 years, Jhpiego, (pronounced "ja-pie-go"), has empowered front-line health
workers by designing and implementing simple, low-cost, hands-on solutions that
strengthen the delivery of health care services, following the
household-to-hospital continuum of care. We partner with community- to
national-level organizations to build sustainable, local capacity through
advocacy, policy and guidelines development, and quality and performance
improvement approaches.
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