First Lady Rachel Ruto has taken up a new campaign to end new HIV infections, teenage pregnancies and sexual and gender-based violence among young people.
Her campaign is informed by the latest data from the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC), which indicates that girls aged 15–19 accounted for 1,800 of the 2,075 total new HIV infections in that age band last year. This means girls made up about 87 per cent of new infections among teenagers.
The same year, 236,136 children aged 10 to 19 presented at health facilities with pregnancies, while children aged 10 to 17 accounted for 38 per cent of sexual and gender-based violence cases reported in health facilities.
The First Lady on Wednesday led national and county leaders, development partners and young people in signing a Call to Action to End the Triple Threat at a high-level roundtable convened by the NSDCC in Nairobi.
The commitment marks a new phase of the First Lady’s Voice of Children Initiative, which has been taking the conversation on HIV, pregnancy and violence to communities.
She said the campaign must now move beyond listening to young people to delivering practical solutions.
“We have listened to the voices and lived experiences of our young people. The time has now come to turn those voices into action,” she said.
She said her office had travelled to different counties with partners to hear directly from young people about the problems they face, including poverty, stigma, violence and lost opportunities.
“Today, we bring the voices of our young people to the national table. Over the past few months, we travelled across the country with one purpose: to listen,” the First Lady said.
“We heard difficult stories of stigma, violence, poverty and lost opportunities. But we also heard courage, resilience and young people who understand their challenges and have ideas about the solutions they need.”
The First Lady said the three problems (HIV infections, teen pregnancies and violence) cannot be dealt with separately because they are driven by many of the same vulnerabilities, including poverty, gender inequality, economic insecurity, limited access to services and weak protection systems.
Kenya has made significant progress against HIV. NSDCC data presented at the meeting shows new HIV infections fell from 77,647 in 2015 to 13,936 in 2025, an 82 per cent reduction.
But young people remain at the centre of the epidemic. About 41 per cent of new HIV infections among adults occur among people aged 15 to 24, with adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24 recording about three times as many new infections as young men of the same age.
NSDCC chief executive officer Douglas Bosire said the three problems must be tackled together rather than through separate programmes.
The NSDCC presentation showed 2,075 new HIV infections were recorded among adolescents aged 10 to 19 in 2025, down from 5,123 in 2021.
The council’s presentation identified Nairobi, Kakamega and Narok among the counties with the largest concentrations of adolescent pregnancies.
The top 10 counties accounted for 41 per cent of the national total in 2025.
The situation is particularly serious among younger girls.
Kajiado recorded 936 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, followed by Garissa with 726, Homa Bay with 564, Turkana with 562 and Meru with 548.
NSDCC chief executive officer Douglas Bosire said the three problems must be tackled together rather than through separate programmes.
“We have made significant progress in the HIV response, but the continued vulnerability of adolescents and young people demands renewed and coordinated action,” Bosire said in an earlier NSDCC statement on the campaign.
“We cannot address HIV, adolescent pregnancies and SGBV in isolation because these challenges are interconnected.”
“Our young people need accurate information, access to youth-friendly health services, protection from violence and the opportunity to make informed decisions about their health and future. Ending the Triple Threat is a shared responsibility,” he said.
The NSDCC presentation sets three targets for 2030.
These are to end new HIV infections among adolescents, halve adolescent pregnancies to fewer than 120,000 a year and ensure every reported case of violence against children is addressed.
The First Lady said achieving the targets would require more than government announcements.
“What we heard in the counties must now move from voices to policy, from recommendations to budgets and from promises to services that young people can see, access and trust,” she said.
She said young people must be able to access confidential and respectful health services while children who report abuse must find systems that listen, protect, investigate and act.
The First Lady said more than 220 health facilities in four counties had already been engaged and more than 200 healthcare providers trained in adolescent-friendly services.
