Background:

The Born to be healthy project aims to contribute to the containment of the spread of HIV in Kenya, mainly protecting children from the risk of infection, by guaranteeing specific and individualised pathways aimed at adherence to antiretroviral treatment for pregnant women.

In Kenya, there still remains a lack of HIV care, treatment and support services, particularly for adolescents, young women, new-borns and other key populations, including services for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission. Age groups of 0-24 months and 10-24 years remain highly at risk of HIV. In 2020, 274,510 early pregnancies were recorded in Kenya, an indicator often attributable to sexual and gender-based violence, a factor which increases the risk of HIV infection. It is therefore important to increase access to the services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission and promote access to diagnosis, counselling and treatment adherence services.

The project aims to increase access to services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Nairobi County, and increase the number of HIV+ women receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) during pregnancy and/or labour and delivery. This would then lead to a reduction in the number of children with new HIV infection due to transmission from HIV+ mother to child.

5 Health Centers (Kayole 1, Dandora 2, Eastleigh, Korogocho and Ngomongo) in 4 sub-counties (Ruaraka, Embakasi West, Embakasi North and Kamukunji) are involved in the project.

Objectives:

1) to strengthen the prevention services for vertical transmission of HIV in public health facilities and its diffusion at community level

2) to expand the initiatives combatting the spread of HIV, stigma and discrimination related to the disease, and community psycho-social and economic support for people living with HIV.

Within this context, the reasearch team of ID-CARE is interested in understanding which are the factors that hamper the early diagnosis of HIV in new borns and what actions can be put in place to improve the quality of the HIV services to prevent HIV mother to child transmission, supporting the drafting of the research design, defining necessary profiles and roles, and coordinating the investigation and the quantitative analysis of the data.