HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act

This Act may be cited as the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act.

Defines the phrase "a medical practitioner or dentist registered under the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act ( Cap. 253 )" in the interpretation section.

Promote public awareness about the causes, modes of transmission, consequences, and means of prevention and control of HIV and AIDS.

The Government must run a nationwide HIV and AIDS education and information campaign and collaborate with stakeholders, and may use specified approaches and target specified places.

The Ministry responsible for education must design HIV and AIDS prevention and control modules where integration is not appropriate; integration must not be used to sell or distribute birth control devices; and the Ministry must ensure teachers of such courses are trained and qualified.

Healthcare providers must include HIV and AIDS education and information dissemination in healthcare service delivery; the Government must ensure training for providers (including on post-exposure prophylaxis); the Cabinet Secretary responsible for health must provide guidelines for post-exposure prophylaxis in collaboration with stakeholders.

Section 7 requires workplace HIV and AIDS education and information covering confidentiality and attitudes towards infected employees and workers; it references employees in government ministries, departments, authorities and other agencies, and employees in private and informal sectors.

Every local authority, together with the Ministry, must run an educational and information campaign on HIV and AIDS in its area of jurisdiction.

Donated blood must be tested for HIV as soon as reasonably practicable after donation; blood found HIV positive must be disposed of in accordance with prescribed medical-waste disposal guidelines as soon as reasonably practicable after the result is obtained.

The Cabinet Secretary must ensure at all times that healthcare providers and other personnel exposed to HIV are provided with protective equipment (gloves, goggles, gowns) and post exposure prophylaxis.

A person who, while practising professionally, knowingly or negligently causes another to be infected with HIV through unsafe or unsanitary practices commits an offence; authorities may revoke permits or licences for institutions and revoke professional licences for natural persons.

Donors must undergo an HIV test immediately before donating tissue; health institutions must not accept tissue unless the donor tested negative; recipients or immediate relatives may demand a second HIV test before transplant except in emergencies.

No person may compel another to undergo an HIV test, except that someone charged with a sexual offence under the Sexual Offences Act (Cap. 63A) may be compelled to undergo such a test.

Consent is required for HIV testing with specific rules for children, donors, unconscious persons, and others; a medical practitioner who undertakes a test must disclose results if the person requires it; contravention is an offence.

voluntarily request an HIV test in respect of themselves; or

HIV testing and related counselling may only be carried out at Cabinet Secretary-approved testing centres or by Cabinet Secretary-approved healthcare providers; the Cabinet Secretary sets approval standards and guidelines, and contravention is an offence.

Testing centres must provide pre-test and post-test counselling to persons undergoing HIV tests and others likely affected; the Ministry of Health must train competent personnel to support services at those centres.

Results of an HIV test to be given to the tested person.

Health institutions and health management organizations must facilitate access to healthcare services for persons with HIV without discrimination; the Government must, to the maximum of its available resources, take steps to ensure access to essential healthcare services and medicines at affordable prices for persons with HIV or AIDS and those at risk.

Persons must not undertake HIV or AIDS related human biomedical research on another person or on tissue or blood from that person unless the research conforms to statutory requirements.

Research may proceed only with written informed consent: either the written informed consent of the other person, or if that person is a child, the written informed consent of a parent or legal guardian; and persons whose consent is sought must be adequately informed of aims, methods, anticipated benefits and potential hazards and discomforts of the research.

The Cabinet Secretary responsible for health may prescribe guidelines for anonymous HIV testing.

A person who contravenes any of the provisions of this Part commits an offence.

The Cabinet Secretary responsible for health may make privacy guidelines for HIV test records; no person may record, collect, transmit or store such records except in accordance with those guidelines.

Mentions confidentiality of records and a request for an HIV test by persons in respect of themselves.

Disclosure of information is permitted in the circumstances listed in subsection (1) (for example with written consent of the person or their partner/guardian/representative, to a person approved by the Cabinet Secretary involved in treatment or counselling, for authorised research, to a court when directly relevant, to the registrar of births and deaths, or when authorized or required by this or any other written law); subsection (2) excludes disclosures of statistical or other information that could not reasonably be expected to lead to identification.

A person who contravenes any of the provisions of this Part or of any guidelines prescribed hereunder commits an offence.

Persons aware they are infected with or carrying HIV must not knowingly and recklessly place others at risk; those who contravene subsection (1) or (2) commit an offence punishable by fine up to 500,000 shillings or imprisonment up to seven years; a person referred to in subsections (1) or (2) may request a medical practitioner or approved person to inform and counsel sexual contacts; medical practitioners or approved persons should, whenever possible, comply in person; such informants are not, by reason only of that action, in breach of the Act.

Sets out membership, minimum qualifications, gender requirement, quorum, decision rule, remuneration determination, and grounds for vacancy and removal for the HIV and AIDS Tribunal.

The Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear and determine complaints, matters or appeals under the Act and to perform other functions conferred by this Act or other written law; it does not have criminal jurisdiction.

The Tribunal has broad powers to summon witnesses, take evidence (including by affidavit), call for documents, admit otherwise inadmissible evidence, summon expert evidence, award costs, deem documents issued by the Chairperson as Tribunal-issued, and to make various orders including awarding damages, directing corrective steps, maintaining the status quo and requiring progress reports.

Failure or refusal to attend at the time and place mentioned in the summons served on him.

If the Tribunal awards damages or costs, it must, on application by the person in whose favour they were awarded, issue a certificate stating the amount; that certificate may be filed in the High Court and, when filed, is deemed a High Court decree and may be executed as such.

The Chief Justice may, subject to this Act and after consulting the Tribunal Chairperson and by notice in the Gazette, make rules governing the Tribunal's practice and procedure.

Subsection (1) describes discriminatory acts in the workplace—denial of access to employment, transfer, denial of promotion, or termination; subsection (2) provides an exception when an employer can prove the job requires a particular state of health or medical/clinical condition.

Educational institutions must not deny admission, expel, discipline, segregate, deny participation in events, or deny benefits or services to a person solely because of the person's actual, perceived or suspected HIV status.

People must not have their freedom of abode, lodging, or travel denied or restricted, and must not be quarantined, isolated, refused lawful entry or deported from Kenya, solely because of actual, perceived or suspected HIV status.

No person shall be denied the right to seek an elective or other public office on the grounds only of the person's actual, perceived or suspected HIV status.

Prohibits requiring an HIV test or disclosure of HIV status solely to obtain credit, loans or insurance; allows limited no-test cover, permits tests for higher cover, enables insurers to require treatment, charge extra or decline cover, and provides appeal routes to the Commissioner and Tribunal.

Healthcare services must not be denied to, or charged at a higher fee for, a person because of that person's actual, perceived or suspected HIV status.

A deceased person with AIDS or known/suspected/perceived HIV-positive status must not be denied access to any burial services on the grounds only of that status.

A person who contravenes any of the provisions of this Part commits an offence.

A person convicted of an offence under this Act for which no other penalty is provided is liable to up to two years' imprisonment, or a fine up to one hundred thousand shillings, or both.

All offences under this Act shall be cognizable to the police.

Authorises making regulations to prescribe anything required by the Act.

If this Act or its regulations conflict with any other written law, the provisions of this Act or its regulations prevail.