Health
The Ministry of Health (MOH) in partnership with Amref Kenya has conducted a training for 60 health practitioners from Siaya County. This initiative aims to revolutionize the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and enhance data sharing.
The workshop, held in Kisumu County, focused on building capacity and equipping health workers with skills for accurate patient data collection and reporting cases of neglected diseases into the Kenya Health Information System (KHIS) in a bid to alleviate the burden of NTDs in the lakeside region.
Wycliffe Omondi, Head of the Division of Vector Borne & Neglected Tropical Diseases at MOH, represented the Acting Director General of Health, Dr. Patrick Amoth, at the forum’s official opening. Omondi emphasized the importance of streamlining information exchange services within KHIS to bolster the fight against NTDs.
“MOH is leveraging existing technologies like KHIS to scale up the campaign to eliminate neglected illnesses so that we can concentrate on other serious illnesses affecting Kenyans,” he said. The government is committed to strengthening human resource capacity in the medical sector to streamline NTDs reporting within the national KHIS platform.
Michael Ofire, Lead of the NTDs Integration Program at Amref, noted that the five-day workshop targeted medical officers, pharmacists, health records information officers, public health officers, and lab technicians from Siaya who are actively involved in patient records management.
Ofire explained, “The KHIS is an effective tool to aid in collecting and reporting NTDs data as it empowers medical providers to share patients’ NTDs data from grassroots health facilities to the national level enabling better decision making and resource allocation towards eliminating NTDs.”
Amref has also conducted similar training for 90 medical practitioners from Kilifi County and plans to roll out similar programs in Busia, Vihiga, Kakamega, and Trans Nzoia counties to integrate NTDs into KHIS. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies diseases such as sleeping sickness, dengue, scabies, jiggers, rabies, snakebites, and bilharzia as neglected due to the lack of attention from international health stakeholders.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito which is the primary vector of dengue, is one of the prevalent Neglected Tropical Diseases in Kenya. Photo Courtesy
Over 25 million Kenyans, primarily from impoverished communities, are affected by these illnesses, posing significant public health challenges such as severe morbidity, disability, and socioeconomic consequences. Charles Oduor, NTDs Coordinator at MOH reiterated that neglected diseases mostly affect poor and marginalized communities. He praised Amref’s interventions in ensuring NTDs can be recognized, diagnosed, treated, and prevented.
“Preventing these diseases is very easy just by observing basic hygiene and proper sanitation, but since they have been neglected, they end up affecting so many people,” he said.
Oduor advocated for a system where Community Health Promoters are also empowered to detect and refer NTDs cases to health facilities for treatment, warning that if not managed early, these diseases cause significant pain and lifelong challenges, such as deformities.
Kenya has implemented comprehensive national strategies, including preventive chemotherapy, NTDs disease management, enhanced surveillance, improved water, sanitation, and hygiene, as well as community-based interventions. These measures have led to the successful elimination of sleeping sickness caused by tsetse flies.
“The MOH has submitted the elimination dossier to WHO for validation and certification. We expect the global health body to declare Kenya free of sleeping sickness at the beginning of 2025,” Omondi remarked, adding that these strides have also interrupted the transmission of leprosy and Onchocerciasis.
Chitiavi Juma from Amref mentioned that Kenya has confirmed 17 of the 21 NTDs recognized by WHO. The Guinea worm has been completely eliminated, and the government, through collaborations, has prioritized tackling bilharzia and intestinal worms.
The MOH’s Division of Vector Borne and NTDs, in collaboration with Amref Kenya, is implementing a mapping program across 47 counties to ascertain the prevalence of bilharzia and intestinal worms. Omondi affirmed that the MOH has established comprehensive data for 15 counties, including Kakamega, Trans Nzoia, Bungoma, Vihiga, Murang’a, and Nairobi, which piloted the survey.
“MOH is also mapping to get incidences of snakebites, scabies, jiggers, and other ectoparasites common in Central, Rift Valley, Eastern, and North Eastern regions,” he stated.