A brightly colored poster at the Kayole Health Centre shows a picture of a doctor in front of two patients.  He is handing them a packet of anti-retroviral drugs whilst giving them instructions on how to take them.  A group of four twenty five year olds sit directly below the poster on a white wooden bench with the paint partially peeled.

“We’ve been waiting for starter packs for almost a year” says Millicent “I’ve been coming weekly, hoping that these drugs will become available to me,” her eyes are sullen and her head rests on Peter’s shoulder.

 Between 1.2 and 1.3 million people in Kenya are infected with HIV.  Of these only 140,000 have access to ARVs.   Peter, Millicent, David and Catherine are not among them. The matron at the Kayole clinic, Judy Jebotana, gives the group an anxious glance - once again she will have to turn them away. 

   
  Without access to the drugs that can halt the attacks on their immune system, thousands of people like Peter, Millicent, David and Katherine are in a desperate position.  Their position, however, may be about to get even worse.
  

Kenya has indeed come far from the days when the enormity of the Aids problems only filtered into the collective conscious through the alarming number of funeral notices of young and middle aged people in the daily press.  We knew they were dying but no one dared say why.  Public announcements and educational messages on the disease were prohibited on radio and television programs. 
 

 The first anti-retroviral drug came to the American market in 1996.  Since then newer drugs and “cocktails,” consisting of a combination of ARVs, can dramatically slow down the replication of the HIV virus.  This does not just prolong lives, but allows sufferers to continue living with quality and dignity.  Affected parents can continue to earn a living and care for children instead of leaving an army of destitute orphans while the economic work force is decimated.  According to UNICEF there are 170,000 orphans in Kenya. A society cannot be built on the dying. The government apparently had got this message.  

 In 2001, ARV treatment cost between 40 and 45 thousand shillings per month.  After pressure from activists and procurement companies, “The Industrial Property Act (2001)” was passed.  This Act allowed the main procurers and distributors of drugs in Kenya to choose from a larger supply base from around the world.  It included a clause that annulled the right of the patent holder to have any influence over a good once it was on Kenyan shelves.   Multi-National drug companies no longer had the power to dictate which drugs should be available in Kenya and at what price.

  
 So it currently in Kenya today costs about sh 4,500 to treat one HIV/Aids patient per month using patented drugs while this can go down to sh1,500 using six-doze generic drug.  As a result, in some cases, the government is able to provide free medicine to its citizens.