This weeks featured project : Médecins Sans Frontières Australia

Oct 2004

Kenya :: first public healthcare and HIV/AIDS programme in Kibera slum

On 21 October, in collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, Médecins Sans Frontières opened a health centre providing public healthcare including treatment for HIV/AIDS for the residents of Kibera slum in Nairobi. Kibera is one of the biggest slums in Africa with a population of over 600 000. The new centre will be the first to give residents direct access to the most basic public healthcare.

The centre will provide a full package of basic healthcare as well as comprehensive care for HIV/AIDS, with the programme including out-patient consultations, Mother and Child Healthcare (MCH), family planning, care for victims of sexual and gender based violence, as well as full and free access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

Through this project, Médecins Sans Frontières aims to demonstrate that a full package of quality health care integrating HIV/AIDS can be successfully provided in an urban slum setting.

The population in this densely populated slum is socially and economically extremely vulnerable

Médecins Sans Frontières has been working in Kibera since 1997. It started with a patient support centre that included Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and management of opportunistic infections for people infected with HIV/AIDS. Due to huge demand, Médecins Sans Frontières had to increase its activities, and currently runs two HIV clinics providing VCT and HIV/AIDS prevention care and treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Currently, 650 HIV-positive patients are regularly followed and amongst them more than 150 are receiving ARV treatment. Médecins Sans Frontières runs similar programmes in other areas of Nairobi, as well as in Busia and Homa Bay.

Wyger Wentholt

In Kenya, Médecins Sans Frontières focuses on HIV/AIDS care, treatment, prevention and policy advocacy. In Homa Bay, Busia and Nairobi we support voluntary counseling and testing centers, treatment of secondary infections like tuberculosis, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, psychosocial care, and patient support centers. Free antiretroviral treatment is also offered.

Until recently Médecins Sans Frontières was also extensively involved in caring for refugees in Kenya. We ran three hospitals and nine health centers in refugee camps for Somali refugees in Dadaab. In 2003, after 11 years of providing medical assistance there, we transferred our projects to a German organization. Aid to Somali refugees in Mandera, in the northeast, was abruptly halted in June 2003 after a grenade explosion outside the Médecins Sans Frontières compound severely injured an Médecins Sans Frontières volunteer.

MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES IN KENYA

Kenya map

COUNTRY PROFILE
Kenya
Population: 31,904,000
Life expectancy: 49 years
Expatriate staff: 46 | National staff: 243

» Read about other featured projects

Overseas Field Work - Recruitment info evenings