| dc.description.abstract | HIV stands for human Immunodeficiency virus a virus which attacks the body by damaging the defense system. The virus infects cells of the immune system and destroys their functions leading to immune deficiency. On the other hand AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which means that once the body has the virus it becomes seriously weakened so that it loses its ability to fight off infections that it would normally have fought. The infected person develops a number of serious infections and illnesses which if not well diagnosed and treated eventually leads to death. The first HIV/Aids case in Kenya was diagnosed in 1984. (K'Oyugi and Muita 2002) This figure has grown rapidly to 1.2 million Kenyans infected with HIV/ Aids at the end of 2003. (Henry Kaiser Family Foundation 2004). The Kenya government, alarmed by the increasing number of HIV/Aids cases, overstretched mortality rate of 500 deaths per day, declared HIV/Aids a National disaster in 2001.
Recent data indicate that Kenya's HIV prevalence rate is on the decline in some areas to 6.7% just below that of sub-Saharan Africa regional overall of 7.5%. However, the HIV / Aids epidemic poses significant challenges beyond the imaginable. HIV/ Aids being a disaster in its own context has had a big negative impact on Kenya's social, economic and cultural aspects just to mention but a few. Therefore, even as statistics indicate that the prevalence rate is declining significantly: 6.1% in 2004, 5.9% in 2005 and 5.1 % in 2006 (NACC, 2006), the impact of the disease is far reaching and is taking longer than expected to bring to control. For instance, one dramatic impact of HIV / Aids is the decline in life expectancy. The Kenya Government body in charge of national statistics: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS, 2005) estimates that without HIV/Aids, life expectancy at birth would currently be about 65 years. However, because of the large number of HIV / AIDS related deaths, it is actually only about 46 years and may decline to 45 years by 2010. Thus almost 20 years of life expectancy have already been lost as a result of the pandemic.
Urban slums comprise a social cluster that engenders a distinct set of health problems.
With 1 billion people currently estimated to live in such communities, this neglected population has become a major reservoir for a wide spectrum of health conditions that the formal health sector must deal with. Unlike what occurs in formal settlements, the formal health sector becomes aware of the health problems of slum populations relatively late in the course of their illnesses. As such, the formal health sector inevitably deals with the severe and end-stage complications of these diseases at a substantially greater cost than what it costs to manage non-slum community populations. Because of the informal nature of slum settlements, and cultural, social, and behavioral factors unique to the slum populations, little is known about the spectrum, burden, and determinants of illnesses in these communities that give rise to these complications, especially of those diseases that are chronic but preventable like HIV / Aids. (UN-Habitat 2002). | en_US |
