Joe Muriuki, the First Kenyan to go Public About His HIV Positive Status, Dies

Dr. Joe Muriuki, the first Kenyan to go public about his HIV positive status, has died in Nairobi after living with the virus for 35 years.

Muriuki, 62, passed away while undergoing treatment at a Nairobi hospital at around 8:00 pm on Monday, according to Nelson Otuoma, the National Coordinator of the National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK).

His death comes a week after he was discharged from Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), where he had been admitted for a month.

Muriuki is lauded for being the first Kenyan to publicly disclose his HIV status at a time when HIV/AIDS patients were stigmatized, shunned, and ostracized.

When he made the announcement in 1987, the deceased believed he only had a few months to live based on what doctors had told him. 

In a past interview with The Standard, Muriuki noted that he was among the first people to contract the ‘slim disease’ as it was known at the time.

“I was a normal young man with a normal lifestyle. I had a promising career as an accountant at Nairobi City Council.  I had been losing weight and having other standard symptoms associated with HIV but I assumed it was malaria,” Muriuki was quoted as saying. 

“The doctor ran various tests including one for HIV. On getting the results, the doctor stood and started pacing to the window.”

At his workplace, Muriuki was demoted and his seat removed while his in-laws mounted pressure on his wife to dump him.

He eventually quit his job and relocated to Nyeri, where he continued to live a healthy lifestyle and later founded the ‘Know Aids Society,’ a HIV/AIDS non-profit organization.