Kenya

Malaria prevention and control is a major foreign assistance objective of the U.S. Government. In May 2009, President Barack Obama announced the Global Health Initiative (GHI), a comprehensive effort to reduce the burden of disease and promote healthy communities and families around the world. Through the GHI, the US Government will improve health outcomes, building upon and expanding successes in addressing specific diseases and issues. The President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) is a core component of the GHI, along with HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and tuberculosis. PMI was launched in June 2005 as a five-year, $1.2 billion initiative to rapidly scale up malaria prevention and treatment interventions and reduce malaria-related mortality by 50% in 15 high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa. With passage of the 2008 Lantos-Hyde Act, funding for PMI has now been extended through FY 2014. A decline in the burden of malaria in Kenya has been observed in recent years due to aggressive efforts to scale up malaria control measures. This has reduced malaria transmission intensity in most parts of the country. In spite of this, moderate to high levels of transmission persist in certain endemic zones and the 2010 Kenya Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) confirmed that malaria prevalence remains more than twice as high in rural areas (12%) than in urban areas (5%). Malaria prevalence around Lake Victoria is particularly high at 38%, while prevalence in other epidemiological zones has dropped to less than 5%. Consequently, as part of Kenya's National Malaria Strategy 2009-2017 (NMS), prevention and control interventions are tailored to the current epidemiology of malaria, with efforts concentrated in the lake-endemic zone. Kenya has a Round 10 Malaria grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), which was signed in early 2012 and has a Phase 1 (September 2011 "December 2013) value of over $38 million. Phase 2 is currently being negotiated. The grant provides critical support for maintaining universal coverage of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), ensuring a nationwide supply of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), and implementing the national diagnostic policy to provide malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to all health facilities. The funding does not fully cover commodity and programmatic needs, and Kenya relies on external partners to help ensure effective implementation of malaria prevention and control activities. The activities that PMI is proposing for FY 2014 are matched with identified needs and priorities described in the NMS and build on investments designed to improve and expand malaria-related services during the first five years of PMI funding. The proposed FY 2014 PMI budget for Kenya is $32.4 million.