Background: The Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) was introduced in Kenya in 2016 and implemented at Kiambu Level 5 Hospital (KL5H) three years later in 2019. During a routine MPDSR meeting at KL5H, committee members identified a possible link between the off-label use of 200mcg misoprostol tablets divided eight times to achieve the necessary dose for labour induction (25mcg) and maternal deaths. Following this, an administrative decision was made to switch from misoprostol to dinoprostone for the induction of labour in June of 2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince 2019, the WHO recommends the development and implementation of National Essential Diagnostics List (NEDL) to facilitate availability of In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVDs) across the various tiers of the healthcare pyramid, facilities with or without a laboratory on-site. To be effective, the development of NEDL should take into consideration the challenges and opportunities associated with current modalities for organization of tier specific testing services in-country. We conducted a mixed-methods analysis set out to explore available national policies, guidelines and decision-making processes that affect accessibility of diagnostics in African countries; 307 documents from 48 African countries were reviewed and 28 in-depth (group) interviews with 43 key-informants in seven countries were conducted between June and July 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Worldwide, 1.7 million children younger than 15 years were living with HIV in 2021. Only 52% of them had access to antiretrovirals (ARVs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(TFG) is used as an antidiarrheal traditional medicine in Western Kenya. This study aimed to investigate the antidiarrheal activity of its aqueous extracts and the putative mechanism (s) of action using Sprague-Dawley rats and New Zealand white rabbits respectively. The antidiarrheal effects of the extract were evaluated in castor oil-induced diarrhea, the castor oil-induced enteropooling, and phenol red gastric motility tests.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: We determine the level of adherence to the revised Kenya early infant diagnosis (EID) algorithm during implementation of a point-of-care (POC) EID project.
Methods: Data before (August 2016 to July 2017) and after (August 2017 to July 2018) introduction of POC EID were collected retrospectively from the national EID database and registers for 33 health facilities. We assessed the number of HIV-infected infants who underwent confirmatory testing and received baseline viral load test and proportion of infants with an initial negative result who had a subsequent test.