Most HIV-Positive Kenyans Are Unaware of Their Serostatus

The vast majority of HIV-infected Kenyans do not realize they carry the virus, according to a national seroprevalence study presented at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal.

Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed and colleagues with Kenya's AIDS/STD control program conducted a two-stage, nationally representative survey, enrolling 19,840 people ages 15-64 during August-December 2007. Among them, 91 percent completed the survey and 80 percent had blood drawn for HIV testing.

Based on the sample population, Mohammed and colleagues estimated that 1.3 million Kenyans have HIV, a number that has not significantly increased since 2003. However, 81.3 percent of those infected were unaware of their serostatus, and among them 41.9 percent reported never using a condom. In addition, 63.5 percent of participants reported never taking an HIV test, including 54.4 percent of HIV-positive participants.

"Circumcised men were three times less likely to be infected with HIV than were uncircumcised men," said Mohammed.

HIV prevalence varied from 8.4 percent among women to 5.4 percent among men. Prevalence was highest among those ages 25-49 (9.8 percent), compared with 3.8 percent among those ages 15-24 and 5.0 percent among people ages 50-65. Prevalence also varied by province, from 14 percent to 0.8 percent, and from urban (8.4 percent) to rural areas (6.7 percent).

Back to other news for February 2009