Nairobi — Far fewer Kenyans are dying of HIV-related causes today than seven years ago.

A new report attributes this to increased use of anti-retrovirals while prevalence rates seem to have stabilised.

According to the 2009 Aids Epidemic Update released by the UN on Wednesday, Aids-related deaths have fallen by 29 per cent since 2002. About 300,000 Kenyans, 28,000 of them children, are on ARVs out of a possible 1.4 million infected people. In 2001 only about 10,000 people were on anti-retrovirals.

The UNAids, World Health Organisation report says although the epidemic seems to have stabilised in the region, there is a worrying trend in Kenya where new infections are on the rise in rural areas.

However, the report says the rate of new infections in Kenya and most other sub-Saharan African countries has slowly declined -- with the number in 2008 approximately 25 per cent lower than at the epidemic's peak in the region in 1995.

Condom use

Prevalence rates in Kenya have stabilised at the higher rate of about 7.4 per cent, which is attributed to more people with HIV living longer due to access to ARVs.

"The good news is that the declines we are seeing are due, at least in part, to HIV prevention," said Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAids.

A perusal of the Kenya Demographic Health Survey and the Kenya Aids Indicator Survey shows increased condom use at first sexual activity among the youth.

"Condom use among youth aged 15-24 years doubled in the last five years," says Dr Nicholas Muraguri of the National Aids and STDs Control Programme.

The report, released ahead of World Aids Day on Tuesday, says countries providing drugs that prevent mother-to-child transmission had seen a drop in infant infections.

In Kenya, there are an estimated 1.5 million pregnancies annually and about 100,000 of the women are HIV positive.

Assuming no mother-to-child HIV prevention medication was administered, about 40,000 children born of these women will be HIV positive.

But with the current levels of preventing mother-to-child transmission coverage, the risk of a child being infected by the mother has been reduced by more than a half to about 15,000 cases annually.

"We have plans to reduce this to only two per cent by 2013," says Dr Muraguri.

HIV prevalence rates have stabilised to about seven per cent from an all high of 13.4 in 2000.

Long way

However, the UN study says Kenya has a long way to go before it can claim to be on top of the epidemic.

"While HIV testing more than doubled between 2003 and 2007, an estimated 83 per cent of people living with HIV remained undiagnosed in 2007," says the report.

Other challenges is raising funds for projects targeting prostitutes and their clients, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users, who together account for one in three new HIV infections.