After a long period of indecision, insurance companies are gradually warming up to the possibilities of providing medical cover to people living with AIDS.

This development amounts to a paradigm shift in the health insurance sector – long associated with conservative practices that gave HIV/AIDS a wide berth citing high risks and uncertainty.

Sylvia Akinyi Opondo has lived with HIV for the last 19 years. Over the past few years, she has dedicated her life to supporting those like her to cope with the disease.

“The biggest problem we have as people living with HIV is food and medicine,” she says. “When we go without, we succumb to various ailments and die.”

In the late 1970’s, a young man working in a nondescript building at the University of Nairobi was struggling to piece together scientific information that would explain how the immune system responds to infectious diseases.

This study was happening at World Health Organization sponsored immunology Research Centre, and the young scientist in the laboratory was Professor Job Bwayo, who met his death last Sunday evening at the hands trigger happy thugs.

Few years ago it was a taboo subject and one thought to be a preserve of the rich and mighty or performing stars.

But in the last four decades, plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes has become a favoured procedure of the middle income earners who are ready to save or take a loan to enhance their looks.