Kenya Benefits from $100 million Health Project

19 January 2011

Health Services in eastern and central Kenya are getting a big boost through a new $100 million dollar program. The U.S. development agency, USAID, has awarded the funds to an international non-profit organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.

For the past four years, Jhpiego has led a nearly $34 million program in eastern Kenya called APHIA II. APHIA stands for AIDS, Population and Health Integrated Assistance. The goal is to “empower front-line health workers” with effective, low cost solutions to delivering quality health care.

“The work that began in 2006 and which ended in 2010 December, led by Jhpiego, was tasked with the responsibility of building a linkage between the community and the hospitals in Kenya, particularly the part of Kenya that is called the Eastern Province. Eastern Province is an area of about 6 million Kenyans with diverse challenges in terms of health,” says Dr. Ken Chebet.

Chebet says those challenges included low immunization rates, a lack of family planning services, little awareness among the local population of their HIV status and a large number of orphans and vulnerable children.

APHIA II made progress on all fronts. As a result, USAID is awarding $100 million dollars to Jhpiego to launch the APHIAPLUS Health Service Delivery project. It’s a partnership between the U.S. and the Kenyan government that will expand health services in both Eastern and Central provinces.