Kenya has made remarkable progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS over the past four decades, but rising infections among young people threaten to reverse some of the gains achieved, the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC) has warned.
According to NSDCC Chief Executive Officer Douglas Bosire, the country's HIV response has transformed dramatically from the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s when an HIV diagnosis was widely perceived as a death sentence.
"It is a fact that the HIV response in this country has evolved and grown tremendously over the last 42 years," Bosire has said.
"In the early years, there was fear, stigma and very little knowledge about the disease. People living with HIV were isolated and discriminated against because many believed infection meant certain death," he added.
Speaking diring the ongoing media wards on HIV dubbed Voices of Impact, HIV and STIs media awards, Bosire has recalled a time when communities distrusted even simple social interactions with people suspected of living with HIV.
