AMPATH Assists People Affected by Flooding in Busia

What if you had to rebuild your life every year? Not figuratively, but literally had to build your life back every year.

Flooding in Budalangi

For the residents of Budalangi in Kenya, this is a familiar occurrence. Budalangi constituency is situated in the western part of Kenya along the shore of Lake Victoria and borders the Republic of Uganda. Every year or so, when the country experiences heavy rains, the river Nzoia flowing into Lake Victoria bursts its banks.  As they recently experienced, occasionally the lake itself flows back and claims many kilometres of the mainland. Unfortunately, most of the residents of the region occupy the flat areas of the land where the water floods.

This year however, the flooding was not only much worse, but it was further compounded by the COVID-19 situation. More than 3,000 families were displaced in the floods and forced to seek shelter in schools converted into camps for displaced persons. The food and sanitary situation in the camps were the subject of concern to many partners working in the region who poured out their support to the residents and the county in response to the crisis. This was also amid fears of COVID-19 transmission given the difficulty in practicing social distancing and poor access to masks/PPE in the crisis.

Professor Sylvester Kimaiyo, AMPATH Chief of Party, participates in the food delivery in Budalangi

In light of the immediate crisis, AMPATH was one of the partners that quickly moved to respond to the situation with two rounds of food donations. The first was for Ksh. 500,000 (≈$5000 USD) and the most recent one dispatched on Friday, July 3rd,   was valued at over Ksh. 1.4 million (≈$14,000 USD). The donation included maize flour, cooking oil, blankets, 200 bags of maize, 50 bags of beans and more. During the flagging off of the vehicles ferrying the food to Budalangi from Busia town, the Deputy Governor, Hon. Moses Mulomi, thanked AMPATH for their support over the years and especially during the crisis.

AMPATH has partnered with Busia County for many years.  AMPATH is the USAID-funded implementing partner supporting HIV care. The partnership also supports chronic disease management programs in the region and recently expanded to provide health financing technical assistance as well. Under the population health program arm within AMPATH, efforts are underway to increase health insurance enrollment, address social determinants of health, including food and income security, and to strengthen the health system for the provision of quality healthcare.

Churches, markets and health facilities were not spared by the flooding either. Six locations were affected by the floods together with six health facilities that suffered various extents of loss commodities and equipment damaged during the floods. Health services, including HIV care, were briefly interrupted as other means of addressing the situation were sought. 

Busia County has some of the highest population poverty rates, with wide wealth and health inequities slowing development in the region. As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, Busia County has also been one of the worst hit counties because of the challenge of transiting truck drivers transporting goods to neighbouring Uganda. As the risk of community spread from the truck drivers grows daily, AMPATH is once again in discussions with the county to form strategies to do community testing and provide surveillance support working with the county government officials and epidemiologist within AMPATH.