Kenya Sunday received a grant worth millions of dollars to help the country fight AIDS and other major diseases.
Kenya's National AIDS Control Council says it is delighted with Global Fund's decision to give Kenya $36 million over two years to help people living with AIDS.
Global Fund is a Geneva-based consortium of donor nations that was set up last year to fight against and prevent diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The assistant to the director of the National AIDS Control Council, Grace Omodho, says some of the money will be used to screen pregnant women who are HIV positive and to assist their partners and children. The rest will go toward training people to provide counseling and other services and supply anti-retroviral drugs to those who need them.
"They've given us exactly what we asked for in the first two years," said Ms. Omodho. "The money will go far in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
"It is basically to complement what is already being done by the government," she added.
There is also a possibility Kenya could get more money from Global Fund in the future. Jerry Van Moriuk, a Global Fund official who came to Nairobi to announce the grant, said Kenya would get more funding if the money was used properly. However, he said that if the money is used improperly, the funding will stop.
Approximately three million people in Kenya are believed to be HIV positive. The disease kills about 700 Kenyans each day.
