Part 1
The country that I will focus on this quarter is Kenya. That follows the reason that the country’s major health documents such as the publications by the Ministry of Health are written in the English language that I am fluent in, and understand quite well. Besides, Kenya is classified as a lower middle-income country and has severe disease burden including HIV, Malaria, and tuberculosis, which are all eligible for the global funds. Not to mention, regardless of its considerable low economic status, Kenya is the leading African nation, which contributes significantly towards global health.
Part 2
The Kenyan proposals to the Global Funds have mainly focused on eliminating and reducing the prevalence, as well as the impacts of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria. In particular, taking on HIV/AIDS, Kenya’s effort has geared towards minimizing the HIV epidemic in the country, together with reducing the impacts of stigma and discrimination that are associated with the disease. Besides, the proposals have focused on providing high-quality TB services including faster detection, and effective treatment. Lastly, Kenya has centered on ensuring effective interventions, which aims to minimize the morbidity and mortality in connection to Malaria.
I suppose a successful proposal to the global funds necessitates eligibility, clear statement of the problem and the potential remedies, as well as, a reasonable budget for the proposed intervention programs. In this case, Kenya has often demonstrated that it is a low-income country, and has prevalence in all or either of the three focus diseases of the Global Funds to prove eligibility. Besides, it has often shown that the high prevalence of the illness and the extent to which the communities are affected. In regard, it has always gone further to propose efficient intervention measures that would help curtail or alleviate the disease concerns. What’s more, the country has often provided the estimated budget to help validate, and convince the donor on how it will put the money to use to solve the major concerns.
Kenya has proposed various intervention measure to help curb the HIV, Malaria, and Tuberculosis in the country. By large, the responses have centered on community intermediation actions with particular concentration on education and awareness. In addition, some of the proposed programs have majored on the prevention and treatment of the various diseases. Lastly, Kenya has also emphasized on monitoring and evaluation of the patients to help track the prevalence and spread of the diseases.
Kenya has submitted ten proposals to the Global Fund, winning eight of them. Since the year 2002, Kenya has sought financial assistance to help curb malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV epidemic in the country. For most of the rounds, Kenya has submitted proposals that target all the three diseases. In what follows, TB has received special attention, with three single approvals compared to the respective two HIV and one Malaria approvals. As such, it perhaps came to the realization of the nation, that in the last round, it only submitted a proposal for HIV and Malaria, which were all approved.
Part 3
HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria are a major public health concern in Kenya. Kenya has an HIV prevalence of approximately 6 percent of the population, accounting for about 1.5 million people as of the year 2016 for the adults aged between 15 and 49 years. According to World Bank, the TB incidence rate in Kenya in the year of 2015 was 233 per 100, 000 people. Again, there are approximately 6.7 million new clinical cases and about 4,000 deaths from malaria in Kenya in 2016.
The disease I will be focusing on this quarter is HIV. That is for the reason that despite the significant intervention measures, HIV remains a high disease burden in the country. In fact, Kenya ranks fourth among the HIV disease burden nations in the world. What more important, the HIV remains to be a severe health threat among the Kenyan youths, who are the future economic building blocks for the nation. Besides, limited knowledge of HIV treatment remains a major challenge in the country, especially in the resource-limited settings despite the recent advancement in the prevention and protection of the disease on a global scale.
Works Cited
CDC. CDC Activities in Kenya. 2016. 9 January 2017. <https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/malaria_worldwide/cdc_activities/kenya.html>.
The Global Fund. Proposals. 2017. 9 January 2017. <http://globalfundkcm.or.ke/proposal/>.
—. TB and HIV Concept Note. 2015. 9 January 2017. <http://globalfundkcm.or.ke/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Kenya-TB-HIV-Concept-Note-narrative1.pdf>.
The Global Funds. Eligibility List. 2016. 9 January 2017. <file:///C:/Users/dotie/Downloads/Core_EligibleCountries2017_List_en.pdf>.
UNAIDS. HIV and Aids Estimates. 2015. 9 January 2017. <http://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/kenya>.
World Bank. HIV and AIDS. 2016. 9 January 2017. <http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/hivandaids>.
—. Incidence of Tuberculosis. 2016. 9 January 2017. <http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.TBS.INCD>.
