Home-Based HIV Testing Initiative in Western Kenya To Reach 2 Million People

NAIROBI, KENYA -- A groundbreaking initiative that will provide home-based HIV/AIDS testing and counseling for two million people in western Kenya over the next two years was announced today by the Right Honourable Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GBC) and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The initiative will be implemented by the Eldoret, Kenya-based AMPATH (Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare) program, working closely with the Kenyan government, the Coalition and PEPFAR.

"To defeat AIDS in Kenya, we need bold new initiatives that reach right into the heart of our communities," said Prime Minister Odinga.  "The Health at Home/Kenya Impact Initiative represents just such a program, and I believe it is public-private partnerships like this one that will have a deep and lasting impact on the health of Kenyans."

PEPFAR and GBC member companies are supporting this two-year Kenya initiative. The project is part of a new series of Coalition-organized collective actions known as Impact Initiatives, which mobilize public and private sector partners into dedicated work teams focused on areas of exceptional need, high impact and the potential to create replicable models.

In Kenya, the Health at Home partnership is bringing HIV testing, TB screening and malaria bed nets into the homes of millions of Kenyans in a remote region with difficult access to health care.  If it proves successful, the initiative - being brought to scale by industry competitors working side-by-side in common cause - could serve as a model to be replicated in other AIDS endemic regions of the world.

Early participants in this Health at Home/Kenya Impact Initiative include the Abbott Fund, Accenture, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, CfC Stanbic Bank Kenya (a member of Standard Bank Group), The Coca-Cola Company, Deutsche Post DHL, Pfizer Inc., Premier Medical Corporation, SAB Miller and Standard Chartered Bank.

Health at Home/Kenya builds on the results of AMPATH's successful Kenya door-to-door pilot program where its HIV testing teams working in Mosoriot, Turbo and Mautuma districts, were welcomed into more than 95 percent of homes where more than 80 percent of those eligible agreed to be tested. In addition, trained health workers will provide TB screening, malaria bed nets and de-worming medications.

"We are using the resources, know-how, and technologies of the GBC member companies and combining them with public sector funding and expertise to significantly scale up an HIV testing and treatment model with an outstanding initial success rate," said John Tedstrom, GBC's President and CEO. "Not only do we have the opportunity to keep people healthier, but by building on AMPATH's remarkable model we may finally have the ability to slow down and eventually defeat the AIDS pandemic."

According to Professor Alloys Orago, Director of Kenya's National AIDS Control Council, "as many as 70% of Kenyans do not know their HIV status and we must be open to all reasonable approaches to get more people tested so they know their HIV status."

While traditional community and hospital testing methods may identify a minority of those infected with HIV, AMPATH found that they could greatly increase these numbers by going door-to-door in the communities surrounding their clinics.

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger praised the initiative and said, "Our PEPFAR program is honored to support this work that will contribute so directly both to the Government of Kenya priority of universal knowledge of HIV status as well as enrolling people in care far earlier in the disease process so they stay healthier longer."

In AMPATH's home-based counseling and testing (HCT) model, the nurse/counselor who enters the home carries hand-held PDA and GPS devices to collect and enter data on family health, record test results and identify the physical location of the household for treatment, education, counseling and data collection follow-up.  Data is entered into AMPATH's medical record system, which is the first and most successful outpatient electronic medical record system in sub-Saharan Africa, and any person identified as HIV-positive during this testing process is immediately given an appointment for follow-up clinical care.

"This initiative will result in hundreds of thousands of people being successfully tested for HIV and, if positive, being immediately referred into care and treatment," said Dr. Sylvester N. Kimaiyo, AMPATH Program Manager.  "We will not win the AIDS battle by waiting for people to come to our clinics, but only by taking HIV testing to people's homes in Africa. This same model can effectively test and treat millions throughout Africa."

In addition to reaching HIV-positive people and connecting them with necessary services, the AMPATH program is also helping those who test negative by making them aware of their status and providing information and support so they remain HIV-free.

About PEPFAR

The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was launched in 2003 to combat global HIV/AIDS, and is the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history.  Working in partnership with host nations, over ten years PEPFAR plans to support treatment for at least 3 million people, prevention of 12 million new infections, and care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.  Visit www.PEPFAR.gov [1] for more information.

About AMPATH

AMPATH (the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare), also known as the Indiana University-Moi University Partnership, provides an integrated system of care that treats each patient as a whole person with multiple needs that must be addressed in order to achieve and maintain health.  AMPATH aspires to reconstitute patients' lives, not just their immune systems.  In 2001, in the face of the deadliest pandemic in human history, the partners joined forces to create one of Africa's largest, most comprehensive and effective HIV/AIDS management and control systems.  Now a formal partner with PEPFAR, the USAID-AMPATH Partnership treats over 85,000 HIV-positive patients at 18 clinical sites in both urban and rural western Kenya, where the program also provides nutrition and income security programming.