Estimating the costs and perceived benefits of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) delivery in ten counties of Kenya: a costing and a contingent valuation study

Background Kenya included oral PrEP in the national guidelines as part of combination HIV prevention, and subsequently began providing PrEP to individuals who are at elevated risk of HIV infection in 2017. However, as scale-up continued, there was a recognized gap in knowledge on the cost of delivering oral PrEP. This gap limited the ability of the Government of Kenya to budget for its PrEP scale-up and to evaluate PrEP relative to other HIV prevention strategies. The following study calculated the actual costs of oral PrEP scale-up as it was being delivered in ten counties in Kenya. This costing also allowed for a comparison of various models of service delivery in different geographic regions from the perspective of service providers in Kenya. In addition, the analysis was also conducted to understand factors that indicate why some individuals place a greater value on PrEP than others, using a contingent valuation technique. Methods Data collection was completed between November 2017 and September 2018. Costing data was collected from 44 Kenyan health facilities, consisting of 23 public facilities, 5 private facilities and 16 drop-in centers (DICEs) through a cross-sectional survey in ten counties. Financial and programmatic data were collected from financial and asset records and through interviewer administered questionnaires. The costs associated with PrEP provision were calculated using an ingredients-based costing approach which involved identification and costing of all the economic inputs (both direct and indirect) used in PrEP service delivery. In addition, a contingent valuation study was conducted at the same 44 facilities to understand factors that reveal why some individuals place a greater value on PrEP than others. Interviews were conducted with 2, 258 individuals (1, 940 current PrEP clients and 318 non-PrEP clients). A contingent valuation method using a “payment card approach” was used to determine the maximum willingness to pay (WTP) of respondents regarding obtaining access to oral PrEP services. Results The weighted cost of providing PrEP was 253 per person year, ranging from 217 at health centers to 283 at dispensaries. Drop-in centers (DICEs), which served about two-thirds of the client volume at surveyed facilities, had a unit cost of 276. The unit cost was highest for facilities targeting MSM (355), while it was lowest for those targeting FSW (248). The unit cost for facilities targeting AGYW was 323 per person year. The largest percentage of costs were attributable to personnel (58. 5%), followed by the cost of drugs, which represented 25% of all costs. The median WTP for PrEP was 2 per month (mean was 4. 07 per month). This covers only one-third of the monthly cost of the medication (approximately 6 per month) and less than 10% of the full cost of delivering PrEP (21 per month). A sizable proportion of current clients (27%) were unwilling to pay anything for PrEP. Certain populations put a higher value on PrEP services, including: FSW and MSM, Muslims, individuals with higher education, persons between the ages of 20 and 35, and households with a higher income and expenditures. Discussion This is the most recent and comprehensive study on the cost of PrEP delivery in Kenya. These results will be used in determining resource requirements and for resource mobilization to facilitate sustainable PrEP scale-up in Kenya and beyond. This contingent valuation study does have important implications for Kenya's PrEP program. First, it indicates that some populations are more motivated to adopt oral PrEP, as indicated by their higher WTP for the service. MSM and FSW, for example, placed a higher value on PrEP than AGYW. Higher educated individuals, in turn, put a much higher value on PrEP than those with less education (which may also reflect the higher “ability to pay” among those with more education). This suggests that any attempt to increase demand or improve PrEP continuation should consider these differences in client populations. Cost recovery from existing PrEP clients would have potentially negative consequences for uptake and continuation.