Bid to make Kenya regional healthcare hub gains pace
Source：Business Daily
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Nairobi
Update Time：2023/05/24
A view of the Integrated Molecular Imaging Center (IMIC) located at the Kenyatta University Teaching Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH) as pictured on January 10, 2022. PHOTO | LUCY WANJIRU | NMG
The government’s plan to make Kenya a regional healthcare destination and a pharmaceutical manufacturing hub is gradually gaining traction.
The country is etching its name regionally as a preferred destination for medical tourism for East and Central Africa, attracting high-quality technology and facilities as well as support from global organizations in a bid to match the levels of countries such as India.
This is to curb the emergence of other pandemics such as Covid-19, which ravaged the world, putting health systems to severe tests.
Countries across the world, especially developing ones, have been caught off-guard as diseases such as Ebola and Marburg emerge, further calling for fixing of emergency health systems.
CyberKnife equipment at the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital is the latest high-technology facility aimed at revolutionizing cancer treatment in Kenya and the wider East African region.
The technology is an advanced form of radiation therapy that uses high-energy X-rays to destroy cancer cells with pinpoint accuracy. It is a painless and minimally invasive procedure that offers low risks to patients.
“The deliberate scaling up of investment in comprehensive medical care and enhanced cancer control programs will help save lives, advance the government’s Universal Healthcare Coverage agenda, and bring us closer to meeting the United Nations sustainable development target of reducing cancer-related deaths by a third in 15 years," said the government.
The technology, which goes live in June comes at a time receiving cancer treatment has proven almost impossible, especially for those living below a dollar per day due to the high cost.
CyberKnife will provide services to patients free of charge. So far, 36 patients are on the waiting list.
In Kenya, cancer is the third leading cause of death after infectious and cardiovascular diseases. It kills an estimated 30,000 people while 47,000 are diagnosed with the disease every year.
The country is also scaling up its efforts in the fight against kidney disease with the construction of the East Africa Kidney Institute (EAKI), which is set to open in September.
The EAKI is expected to be a center of excellence and a game-changer in the management of kidney diseases in the region.
The institute will host a 45-bed dialysis department, a 20-bed critical care area, a next-generation image diagnostic area, laboratories, support outpatient services, and two floors with rooms to accommodate 160 patients.
The Ministry of Health estimates that more than 1.8 million Kenyans suffer from chronic kidney disease, contributed to by late diagnosis, limited access to treatment, and poor control of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, a situation expected to be resolved by the EAKI.
The new initiatives will see the number of patients seeking treatment abroad reduce as that of the patients from abroad increase.
Kenya already has an opportunity to be exploited and attracts about 5,000 patients from several countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Nigeria.
Similarly, the number of Kenyans who travel abroad for treatment, according to official data, stands at 10,000 annually.
On the pharma front, the manufacturing capacity is expected to grow due to confidence and interest from the international bodies receiving accreditation from the World Health Organization (WHO) to manufacture for the global market.
Moderna has finalized an agreement with the government to establish in Kenya an mRNA manufacturing facility — the first in Africa, with the capacity to produce up to 500 million vaccine doses annually. The new facility is expected to enable the manufacturing of vaccines for Kenya and Africa and will be able to quickly scale up its production and respond to public health emergencies on the continent and worldwide.
According to Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria, this investment creates the momentum to meet the $10 billion annual target under the government’s Manufacturing ‘20 by 30 vision, in which Kenya plans to grow the contribution of manufacturing to gross domestic product to 20 percent by the year 2030 from the current seven percent.
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, and Kenya Medical Research Institute will, in the next few months conduct the first phase of clinical study in Kenya to develop TNX-8011 as a vaccine to protect against monkeypox.
In partnership with the WHO, Kenya will also set up a regional health emergency hub and training center to serve the African continent.
Source: https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/data-hub/bid-to-make-kenya-regional-healthcare-hub-gains-pace--4220354