By Joseph Kamau Waweru
Commercial sex workers in Eldoret town have shifted to the use of pills as a way of coping with the ongoing shortage of condoms in the country.
According to the Eldoret Sex Workers Alliance Director Alice Saina, the condom shortage has put to risk over 3,000 commercial sex workers operating within Eldoret town.
Saina who spoke to Uasin Gishu News via a phone interview noted that most of them normally use condoms for protection and that the shortage has forced them to use pills for unguaranteed protection.
“Now the girls are opting to go for PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis) that are not that safe because they only help in the prevention of Aids but they do not protect them from other STIs and unwanted pregnancies, unlike the condoms which are all round protective,” she stated.
She also noted that as an organization, they have appealed to the government to provide condoms but their efforts have hit a brick wall.
The Eldoret Sex Workers Alliance Director further noted that other mainstream organizations feel like they are a threat.
“The county government is trying to block us because when we go and complain to them to supply the condoms, they say that we do not have an NSL code given to us by the Ministry of Health so that we can access commodities from them,” Saina said.
Government says no shortage of condoms
There have been reports of the country facing an acute shortage of condoms for the last few months, which the Ministry of Health denied in January.
The Ministry was responding to claims by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the health sector that the country was facing a shortage of about 300 million condoms annually.
But according to Health CS Susan Nakhumicha, there were only delays in distribution of the condoms to health facilities.
“I would like to clarify to Kenya that we do not have a shortage of condoms in the country. As a matter of fact, as of this morning, we have 38 million pieces of condoms ready for use in the country,” CS Nakhumicha told journalists in January 2023.
Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Executive Secretary Dr Samuel Kinyanjui revealed that Kenyans need at least 455 million condoms per year but the government had the capacity to distribute only 150 million condoms.
