Thousands of Kenyan men are living with HIV but are unaware of their positive status, researchers say.
Such men are at an increased risk of poor health outcomes and are more prone to HIV-related complications if they begin treatment late.
The researchers interviewed and tested 114,776 men for HIV in Kenya and 12 other countries and found large numbers of them who had HIV and did not know it.
“Of those positive, 33.7 per cent were unaware of their HIV-positive status,” the researchers said in findings published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
Most of the men who are unaware of the HIV-positive status said they had never been tested for the virus. They accounted for 63 per cent.
Although the HIV prevalence among women (6.6 per cent) in Kenya is double that of men (3.1 per cent), the testing levels of women are much higher.
Recent studies show that nearly 72 per cent of Kenyan women had tested for HIV in the past 12 months and received their results, compared to 45 per cent of men.
The JAIDS study says that targeting men at risk of infection could improve the yield of testing programmes.
“The results from this large sample suggest that many men in sub-Saharan Africa are likely unaware of their HIV-positive status due to the compounding effects of sociodemographic, behavioural and clinical influences,” the authors say.
National Aids and STIS Control Programme (Nascop) and US Centre for Disease Control in Kenya took part in the study.
Authors propose improving partner testing, frequency of testing, outreach and educational strategies and availability of HIV testing where men are accessing routine health services.
“Increased access to and frequency of HIV testing is needed to identify undetected infection in men including in settings where they are accessing services for TB and voluntary medical male circumcision.”
In Kenya, several institutions are already innovating to reach more men with HIV testing services.
The Nairobi Metropolitan Services is now reaching out to men at their workplaces with HIV self-testing kits to boost uptake of the service.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics census report 2019 shows Nairobi is one of the high burden counties for HIV.
It contributes to 11 per cent of people living with the virus. This translates to an estimated 167,446 out of the county’s population of more than 4.3 million residents.
According to Dr Thomas Ogaro, Nairobi has 392 health facilities offering HIV testing services and 232 giving care and treatment services across public, private, NGO and faith-based hospitals. Ogaro is the deputy director for preventive and promotive health at the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.
“We have partnered with Population Services Kenya and deployed four HIV self-testing kit vending machines. This timely intervention will see the dispensing of free HIV testing kits to employees,” he said.
“The kits include an insert manual with information to support an individual performing an HIV self-test, including details of a WhatsApp chatbox or dialling 1190 for any additional information.”
Edited by P.O