Severe depression grips many living with HIV, even as the World Observes World AIDS Day
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Kenya joined the world on 1 December 2023 in commemorating Worlds Aids Day.
This year’s theme is “Let Communities Lead” which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) calls on global leaders to engage community leadership, fund sustainable initiatives, remove laws that harm, instead create laws that empower by supporting civil society with robust regulation.
In Kenya, significant progress has been made in fighting HIV/AIDS epidemic, with a 53% decrease in new infections since 2010 and over 60% reduction in related deaths.
Albeit in the recently there has been an increase in the number of new HIV infections especially among adolescents with Kenya having the 7th largest HIV burden in the world.
According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey 2022, 1.4 million Kenyans are currently living with HIV with over 1.2 million of them taking Antiretroviral Viral Drugs (ARVs) to reduce their viral load.
This represents approximately 96% of all persons living with HIV in the country. 18,000 deaths were also recorded around the same time with 62 new infections being reported among adolescents each week.
However, there has been a new a growing concern among people living with HIV/AIDS which is mental health issues, notably severe depression, as highlighted by counselling psychologist Dr. Josephine Kinya, during an event in Nairobi organized by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
She noted that most people living with HIV/AIDs are suffering from severe depression that stems from issues to do with stigma and discrimination.
” In most cases, most people who succumb to this condition is basically about mental health because you find that one might decide not to take medication or take care of themselves, after getting a diagnosis,” said Kinya.
It also became clear that stigma especially self-stigma is at the epicentre of mental health problems like depression. “The worst stigma regardless of what we are managing is self-stigma. Self-stigma is what you tell yourself and it is worse than social stigma. When we don’t have self-stigma then we can be able to ignore what people say about us,” stressed Kinya.
A recent WHO report, shows there have been over 300 million people living with depression and nearly 800,000 patients die due to suicide each year. In individuals living with HIV, depression may worsen existing disease states and lead to poorer health outcomes.
Prior research has revealed that depression is not only associated with higher HIV viral load but also hastens the progression to AIDS and elevates the risk of mortality.
Supporting the statements of Dr Kinya, Benjamin Muchiri, senior manager, Nations Accounts Statistics, KNBS explained the history of HIV/AIDS and mental health. ” When this scourge was first recorded in Kenya many people lost their lives including whole families not only because of the illness but also due to mental health issues that came with the stigma,” Muchiri said. He further reiterated that World’s AIDS day is about raising awareness on HIV and also commemorating those those lost to the scourge.
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