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Violence affects HIV treatment
Thousands of uprooted Kenyans are not getting the HIV medicines they need to survive, and rising sexual attacks in camps stand to further spread the disease, public health experts say.
- Reuters
- Published: 01:28 January 31, 2008
Geneva: Thousands of uprooted Kenyans are not getting the HIV medicines they need to survive, and rising sexual attacks in camps stand to further spread the disease, public health experts say.
About 15,000 of the more than 250,000 people who have fled political, ethnic and revenge attacks in the month since Kenya's disputed presidential election are HIV-positive, according to Kenyan Health Ministry figures cited by UNAIDS.
Of that group, 2,550 were taking anti-retroviral therapy to suppress the virus that causes Aids before escalating violence forced them out of their homes and cut off their access to the drugs that must be taken continuously to work.
An unknown additional number of HIV patients are marooned in their homes, missing treatments because local health clinics are closed, or because they are too afraid to risk the journey to health centres.
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