From One Pandemic to another through Women’s Eyes

An Analysis of the Impacts of Kenya’s Responses to HIV/Aids and Covid-19

Abstract

By the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit Kenya in March 2020, the country had made great strides in handling HIV. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened the gains that the country has made in this fight. A major drawback that was caused in this regard is in the context of addressing the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS. For close to 40 years, Kenya has been dealing with HIV/AIDS and has gained significant experience in addressing a pandemic. However, Kenya failed to draw on this experience in dealing with COVID-19. Consequently, Kenya’s failure to apply the useful experience gained in the context of HIV/AIDS in the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in gendered impacts of the country’s COVID-19 responses. The responses that were put in place to contain COVID-19 were reactionary, gender-blind, and fluid, and resulted in creating greater vulnerability among women and girls. These gendered impacts of Kenya’s COVID-19 responses were particularly adverse to women and girls living with HIV/AIDS. This article is, therefore, concerned with the intersections between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 in Kenya, and how they have impacted women and girls. Using a desk review of various studies that have addressed the gender dimensions of COVID-19 and HIV-AIDS, the article highlights the adverse impacts that the COVID-19 containment measures had on women and girls in Kenya. These adverse gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been avoided if Kenya had been more prepared and the lessons learned from the HIV-AIDS pandemic had been applied. The article, therefore, argues that Kenya needs to be more prepared for any future pandemics and to have in place measures that will prevent women from bearing the brunt of any future Pandemics. A key lesson is that there is a need to understand and document how past pandemics have affected women and girls and to use the lessons from those Pandemics in informing policies on pandemic preparedness.