His Excellency President William Ruto presided over a historic Cabinet meeting at State Lodge in Kisumu to demonstrate the Administration’s commitment to decentralizing government operations.
This was the first Cabinet meeting to be held in the Nyanza Region and the third Cabinet meeting held outside of our country’s capital.
Cabinet has authorised the Kenya Health Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Resilience Project in order to strengthen regional health systems and enhance Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Together with the World Bank, this transformational endeavour consists of numerous crucial parts, including:
I. Establishing the capacity for local ‘fill-and-finish’ production of human vaccines at the Kenya BioVax Institute.
II. Strengthening the regulatory capabilities of the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.
III. Enhancing the Quality Control and Assurance capacity of the National Quality Control Laboratory.
IV. Reinforcing the capacity of the National Public Health Institute.
V. Fostering human resources capacity, learning, development, and technology transfer in bio-manufacturing.
The ‘one health’ strategy, emphasising local manufacturing, research, and innovation, is poised to be championed by this programme. These initiatives are crucial to enhancing Kenya’s socioeconomic determinants of health.
In keeping with this strategy, Cabinet has instructed the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) to give local pharmaceutical production priority over imports when making purchases. This is in line with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda’s (BETA) Buy Kenya, Build Kenya programme, which is a key component.
Additionally, in order to improve Kenya’s readiness for pandemics in the future, Cabinet approved the creation of an inter-ministerial committee with the responsibility of negotiating the Pandemic Treaty with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
With this tactical move, MOH wants to solve issues from the past including unequal access to vaccines and vaccine stockpiling during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The committee will push for equality in the creation of the Pandemic Treaty and demand a review of the 2005-updated WHO and International Health Regulations.
Kenya will also advocate for the creation of an equitable global health supply system for pandemic preparation.
