Mombasa County: LVCT Health, through USAID’s Stawisha Pwani project, hosted  the new USAID Kenya and East Africa Mission Director David Gosney during his first official visit to the coastal region.

The Mission Director had an incredible opportunity to meet and discuss with our staff, partners, representatives from Mombasa County Government and healthcare workers, who showcased the achievements made by the project from select health facilities.

Through the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), USAID Stawisha Pwani is supporting the coastal counties of Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale and Taita Taveta’s goal of combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is through the provision of health care services to prevent new HIV infections and transmissions, counselling and testing, treatment and adherence to medications for HIV-positive clients and sustainability in the quality of health services and systems for communities.

During the experience learning tour, Mr Gosney interacted with hospital staff at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital and Jomvu Health Centre. The team took him through the state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and the latest innovations for diagnosing and treating TB, which have helped support key health services to the coastal communities.

The molecular laboratory at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital is the only County owned laboratory which supports the processing of HIV viral load samples (10,000 samples per month) and COVID-19 samples 800 samples per day.

While at Jomvu Health Center, the Mission Director was taken through the latest TB diagnostic tools to improve TB prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment and cure funded by  USAID Kenya. The facility has an intelligence-enabled digital chest x-ray for screening patients at high-risk groups and hard-to-reach areas and a battery-powered machine which generates TB results within an hour and acts as a referral centre in the Coast region.

The Mission Director also visited Kisauni Drop-in-Centre (DiCE) and Watu Centre for Health and advocacy targeting key populations with HIV prevention care and treatment services. He was accompanied by Francis Thoya, the Deputy Governor of Mombasa County, and other Senior officials from the Department of Health Services within the county.

The Mission Director and the Deputy Governor promised to continue with the partnership. They emphasized the need for partners to co-create their activities with the county governments to accelerate the attainment of sustainable health systems. They thanked the implementing partners and staff for their continued service to the people of coastal Kenya.

LVCT Health is the prime implementer of the USAID Stawisha Pwani Project, which aims to increase the use of quality county-led health services in the coastal region by strengthening county health systems.