US President Donald Trump. [Photo/DailyMail]Kenya has become the largest recipient of the US government Aids budget due to the high new HIV infections amid a push by President Donald Trump’s administration to cut funding.Kenya will receive $500 million of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or PEPFAR, which supports HIV/Aids treatment, testing and counseling for millions of people worldwide the US Embassy said in Nairobi.The assistance will come from the roughly $6 billion (Sh618bn) that the US Senate Appropriations Committee voted last week for HIV/Aids projects in more than 50 countries.US President Donald Trump’s administration requested the programme be cut by $1 billion earlier this year, which could have seen assistance to Kenya reduced by nearly 10 per cent.The US Embassy said, “In FY18, the PEPFAR budget for Kenya is $500 million (51.5 billion KSH). Kenya is currently the largest funded PEPFAR program in the world and also gets the largest US funding on health”.Nduku Kilonzo, the director of NACC, said Kenya had 72,000 new HIV infections among adults in 2015, down from 88,000 recorded in 2013. “As we make progress, the numbers are still unsustainably high,” adding that 46 per cent of the new infections were among adolescents and young people.To maximise its impact, PEPFAR will focus much of its efforts on 13 countries that are nearing epidemic control - the point where there are more deaths each year from Aids than there are new HIV infections.

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