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The war against HIV among adolescents in Homa Bay county has received fresh impetus following a move by a non-governmental organisation to come up with a new method that is meant to fight new HIV infections among adolescents by offering youth friendly services in hospitals.

Network for Adolescents and Youth for Africa (Naya) is seeking to scale up HIV prevention and treatment strategies by encouraging young people to seek health services.

It has come up with a programme called self-care that is meant to address new HIV infection among adolescents through talks and outreaches.

The organisation works with youths who act as ambassadors in different villages to encourage adolescents to seek HIV services in health facilities near them.

Currently, Homa Bay is ranked as among counties with high HIV prevalence rate at 15.2 per cent, according to HIV estimates 2023. Adolescents are among patients making the county lead in HIV.

 Friendly services

Naya regional manager Emmaculate Oliech says adolescents and youths do not seek health services because of certain barriers which her organization is trying to address.

She says their findings established that the group do not like interacting with people who are above their age when seeking health services, especially HIV management.

“Most hospitals offer services at a central place where both the youth and the old are put together and attended to. But youths do not like this and tend to shy away from seeking health services,” Oliech says.

In order to address this challenge, the organisation has identified a group of people who are directly linked to youths in need of HIV care.

The group includes health workers, national government administrators and youth ambassadors. Naya has identified Nyalkinyi and Nyagoro health centres as places where youths and adolescents can access HIV friendly services.

At the health facilities, workers have dedicated their weekends to address the the patients among youths and adolescents.

Officials from the organisation have noted an increase in the number of youths seeking HIV services including acquisition of condoms and pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs to prevent HIV.