Nakuru: Nakuru County Referral and Teaching Hospital (NCRTH) and the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP)-Kenya have signed a strategic partnership aimed at building health systems that are capable of responding effectively to emerging public health challenges in the region.
According to Kenya News Agency, Nakuru County Referral and Teaching Hospital (NCRTH) Director Mr. Santosh Devaraj stated that the partnership is focused on identifying gaps and accelerating collaboration across several critical areas, including public health programming, disease surveillance, laboratory systems, and healthcare workforce development.
The chairman, speaking during a meeting with an ICAP Kenya delegation led by Country Director Doris Naitore Mwenda, emphasized the timing of the partnership in light of worrying public health challenges like Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR), which he noted has become a bigger threat in Africa than malaria, HIV, or tuberculosis. An estimated 1.05 million deaths associated with bacterial AMR and 250,000 deaths directly attributable to bacterial AMR were recorded in the WHO African region in 2019 alone. In Kenya, only 18 per cent of bacterial isolates tested are fully susceptible to commonly available antimicrobials, with the majority of strains showing multi-drug resistance, as per Ministry of Health records.
Mr. Devaraj highlighted key priority areas requiring urgent support, such as laboratory quality management systems, ISO certification, diagnostic equipment, and the strengthening of microbiology services, which he said will enhance patient care and service delivery. On the laboratory front, the chairman mentioned that the push for ISO certification and quality management systems at NCRTH aligns with a broader continental challenge, where initiatives like Laboratory Quality Management Systems and ISO 15189 offer hope, with implementation remaining uneven in resource-constrained settings across Africa, according to the African Society for Laboratory Medicine.
NCRTH was elevated in 2019 to a Level 6 facility on par with Kenyatta National Hospital and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. Official health data shows that the hospital has a total inpatient bed capacity of 1,129, including 861 general beds, 250 maternity beds, and 11 emergency casualty beds. The referral hospital has recorded more than 132,000 hospital visits under the Social Health Authority framework, serving patients from Nakuru and several surrounding counties.
ICAP Kenya Country Director Doris Mwenda stated that the programme collaborates closely with the national Ministry of Health and County departments of Health to strengthen a unified national surveillance system and digitalise real-time surveillance data. She noted that ICAP works with over 20 County departments of Health and an equal number of County Referral Hospitals and has been a leading partner of the Ministry of Health in Kenya since 2006, enhancing the national response to HIV, COVID-19, the laboratory system, infection prevention and control, and global health security.
The Director further explained that ICAP-supported efforts have helped 89 laboratories achieve international accreditation and created a network of more than 20 sub-national Emergency Operations Centres that have responded to over 100 disease outbreaks as of 2024. Despite Africa’s health workforce increasing to 5.72 million in 2024 from 4.3 million in 2018, the region still has only 46 per cent of the health workers it needs, with WHO projecting a shortage of 5.85 million health workers by 2030. Africa bears an estimated 25 per cent of the world’s disease burden but accounts for only three per cent of the global healthcare workforce.
ICAP’s recent work at Kenyan health facilities has demonstrated measurable gains, such as at MP Shah Hospital where pneumonia cases fell from three to zero, and bloodstream infections also fell from three to zero between 2023 and 2025, following ICAP-supported healthcare-associated infection surveillance programmes.
On Kenya’s national AMR response, by mid-November 2024, only 20 of Kenya’s 47 counties had established County AMR Steering and Implementation Committees. ICAP Kenya Country Director Doris Naitore had previously noted that integrated data collection tools were critical for enabling contact tracing, laboratory results, and location data to drive efficient public health responses.
The engagement reaffirmed that partnerships between teaching hospitals and global health organisations remain central to building health systems capable of responding effectively to emerging public health challenges, a priority underscored by Kenya’s validation of its second-generation National Action Plan for Health Security covering 2026 to 2030.
