Strengthening Kenya’s laboratory capacity to detect, and investigate COVID-19 (3-minute video)

CDC Strengthens Kenya’s Laboratory Capacity to Detect and Investigate COVID-19 (3-minute video)

Title: CDC Strengthens Kenya’s Laboratory Capacity to Detect and Investigate COVID-19

CDC logo

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(soft music underneath voice over throughout)

Dr. Bonventure Juma, Deputy Laboratory Director Systems, CDC Kenya: The Kenya CDC has been working together with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) for a long period of time in public health and response.

Dr. Evans Amukoye, Research and Development Director, Kenya Medical Research Institute: It’s important to invest in laboratories like laboratory staff and other infrastructure, because these are the areas that we use whenever there is a pandemic, epidemic, or even other diseases, normal diseases. You require specialized care, you require specialized tests, you require specialized people. And in terms of research, you require new knowledge so that we can be able to make diagnosis. We can be able to find treatment for it, and we can be able to give information to the Ministry of Health, how to combat the disease, control the disease, or manage the disease.

Mary Okeyo, Laboratory Manager, National Influenza Center: We have benefited from CDC and KEMRI through in-house training, capacity building, equipment procurement, and also in the technical expertise on how we handle the testings. How we do the safety when we are handling the samples.

Dr. Bonventure Juma, Deputy Laboratory Director Systems, CDC Kenya: In total, we had tested two million samples out of the 3.2 million, and that accounts for about 52% of the samples that were tested in the country. With time, the virus was mutating, and as it was mutating, we needed to know which variants of concern were circulating in the country. And in that process, CDC had established the sequencing capacity in the country in its two laboratories. The CDC-supported KEMRI laboratory in Nairobi, and CDC-supported KEMRI laboratory in Kisumu. And I’m happy here to report that the virus was detected within two days of the arrival of the case in the country by the Kenyan Ministry of Health, the National Influenza Center, and that is a big milestone for the CDC.

Mary Okeyo, Laboratory Manager, National Influenza Center: Having CDC in place, the whole country, I don’t know how we would have made it, because they were, they came in hand for us because NIC had a very small number of technical supports, which could not only handle the support of testing and also going out to do the training, but with this they work hand-in-hand with the emergency operation units who bring all these things into place. And work was very fast, and Kenya could come hand in hand and combat the disease. And we work all as one team, one Kenya, and we made it for Kenya.

Text on slate: To learn more about CDC’s global health work visit www.cdc.gov/globalheatlh/.
Follow @CDCGlobal on social media.

[music ends]

[end]