According to the 2005-2010 Kenyan National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan, compiled by the Ministry of Health, the government of Kenya identified good nutrition as a key component of the national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This was in keeping with the global recognition that good nutrition is essential for the promotion of health and quality of life of all people, particularly people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).
Various scientific research findings had indicated there is an important relationship between HIV and nutrition, with most revealing poor nutrition increases the risk of opportunistic infections and accelerates the progression of HIV to AIDS.
Thus the government, in collaboration with multilateral and bilateral agencies, Non-governmental organisations (NGOS) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) spearheaded the Kenya National Guidelines on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS for harmonized nutrition strategies for PLWHA and people affected by the same.
The purpose of these guidelines was to provide simple and practical ways to assess the nutritional status of HIV-infected clients and assess the risk of malnutrition, assist service providers in identifying locally appropriate sustainable ways of increasing dietary intake by
those who are infected with HIV, and mainstream nutrition interventions into the national HIV/AIDS response.
According to these policy guidelines, HIV/AIDS increases the risk of malnutrition through altered food intake and its nutrient absorption and utilization. It further notes that poor nutrition increases risk of Opportunistic Infections (IOs) and accelerates the progression of
HIV to AIDS.
Pole Pole Support Women Group of Lumakanda village in Lugari Sub County in Kakamega, which has been encouraging people living with HIV/AIDS to embrace horticultural farming, with focus on production of traditional vegetables and legumes is a success story of the
government’s strategic approach to mitigation of the scourge through dietary.
Pole Pole Women Support group, which brought together HIV-positive widows was formed in 1998 with an initial membership of ten members.
Presently with a membership of 26, the group has become a saving grace for a majority of the infected and affected members.
“The society by then was increasingly isolating HIV-positive widows and children. Hence, to mitigate the resultant stigma as well as pool our shrinking resources together we decided formed Pole Pole Support Women Group,” says Mrs. Roselida Barasa, the welfare’s chairperson.
Dubbed ‘Slow Walkers,’ Mrs. Barasa says the welfare has helped unite families by dispelling myths surrounding HIV and AIDS and enabled infected and affected members to interact freely with one another and the community at large.
It was until 2004 when African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF), the first NGO to come to the aid of the group, gave them 5 dairy animals after taking some its members through nutritional training lessons.
With nutrition in mind, Pole Pole Support Group enrolled for a food and farm training programme established by the Academic Model Promoting Access to Health Care (AMPATH) health system in conjunction with Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), which aimed at strengthening the value chain for African indigenous vegetables.
According to Mr. Zacharia Mwaniki, an officer at the livestock department in Lugari, doctors knew patients who were well-nourished responded better to medical treatment for HIV/AIDS.
Some of the most common leafy African indigenous vegetables such as amaranth (sometimes called wandering weed), pumpkin, cowpea, yam leaves, black nightshade, and spider plant were identified as promising crops for the training programme.
“So the programme sought to encourage clients to grow, eat and sell nutritious crops,” says Mwaniki.
Members of Pole Pole then embarked on the production of indigenous African leafy vegetables, which have also been attracting research attention not only due to their inherent nutrition quality but also the healing power of some of these plants.
“AMPATH made us realize the enormous potential to expand African indigenous vegetable production and meet the increasing consumer demand while addressing our important nutrition and income deficiencies,” says Mrs. Irene Murunga, one of the welfare group
members.
Mrs. Murunga lives with HIV after her husband died of HIV/AIDS-related complications several years ago.
But with a sizeable piece of arable land and elaborate farming skills offered to her by experts from the ministry of agriculture, she has been successful indigenous vegetable farming. From her effort, she gets enough vegetables for use at home and for sale.
“I would buy ‘Seveve’ at Kipkarren market for Sh.30 thrice a week, but nowadays, I get the vegetables from my garden, and I even have enough to sell,” she said.
Mrs. Millicent Bunde an agricultural officer who specialises in nutrition, says traditional plants like nightshade and yam leaves, locally known as ‘Seveve’, are a delicious class of vegetables with no saturated fats and hence provides good levels of protein, iron,
iodine, zinc, and selenium at seven times the amounts derived from cabbage.
The high levels of vitamins and micronutrients, she observes, are especially important to people at risk of malnutrition and disease, particularly HIV/AIDS.
“They also have high levels of vitamin A and C, thus enhancing the strength of the immune system,” reveals Bunde.
In a research conducted and published in African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), Professor Ruth Aniang’o, a nutritional science lecturer at Great Lakes University in Kisumu and who has experience in nutrition spanning over 30 years,
says that traditional African vegetables have high levels of vitamin K since they have photosynthetic tissues known as Phylloquinone, which is a fat-soluble vitamin that may not be present in many other vegetables and fruits.
According to Mrs. Barasa, the diversification of diets through increased utilization and consumption of a variety of the indigenous vegetables have gone a long way in alleviating hidden hunger, but more importantly boosted their immunity.
The members have all praises for the government and international agencies initiatives that have seen them continue to live healthy lives to the dismay of village folk who, they say, had predicted their demise would follow after contracting HIV/AIDS from their late
husbands.
“With indigenous vegetables like pumpkin leaves, cowpeas, and Amaranths, rising on our backyards, we are less worried about access to vitamin supplements, which are expensive and less nutritious,” says Mrs. Murunga who works with the adult education department in Lugari Sub County.
Most of the widows confess their Cluster Deficeincy-4 (CD4) cell counts have been on the increase since they embraced African leafy vegetables and proper dietary.
