GHENT UNIVERSITY Karoline FONCK - International Centre for ...

The STI referral clinic, STC, is located in downtown Nairobi and offers STI syndromic
management, laboratory services, health education and HIV counseling and testing. An
average of 200 STI patients per day was cared for, the majority being male. In November
1996, a flat fee of 100 KSh was introduced, resulting in a drop in the number of patients
(about 150 per day), which picked up slowly by 1998, at which stage the number of women
bypassed the male patients attending STC. The majority of patients are self-referred (65% in
1998). Of all new cases seen, 10% to 12% are contacts of index patients at the same clinic.
One of the priorities of the Kenyan authorities was to control syphilis during pregnancy and a
centralized program was set up to that effect. After an evaluation of that program revealed
some problems, syphilis screening has equally been decentralized in Nairobi. The same ten
primary health care clinics have been equipped to perform a rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test
on site. Pregnant women attending other PHC are referred to these 10 clinics for syphilis
testing.
INTRODUCTION 15