Ebola response needs them, but pay dispute keeps public health officers on strike
Cabinet Secretary for Health Aden Duale (left) and Principal Secretary for Public Health and Professional Standards Mary Muriuki during a press briefing at Afya House in Nairobi on October 6, 2026, following Kenya’s confirmation of its first Ebola virus case.
Kenya’s public health officers say the Ministry of Health has sidelined them, yet the country is fighting an Ebola outbreak that has spread beyond its first patient. It is also bracing for the October-to-December El Niño rains.
On Wednesday, day 92 of their strike, the officers protested outside health ministry offices. They say their grievances have been unresolved since the strike began on July 6.
The Nation reported in late July that public health officers had joined clinical officers and laboratory staff on strike. Nurses followed. The nurses have since returned after 43 days. The public health officers have not.
Brown Ashira, national general secretary of the Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health Practitioners Union (KEHPHPU), said the cadre does the work that stops outbreaks from spreading.
“It traces contacts, screens travellers at points of entry, tests and chlorinates water, and arranges safe burials. The union says its members feel overlooked by a Ministry of Health that now depends on them,” he said.
The union has written to the Ministry of Health, the Council of Governors, the Public Service Commission and state corporations. It proposes a return-to-work agreement and a review of the Health Risk Allowance.
It wants a joint meeting within seven days, with representatives named in writing.
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Under the proposed agreement, officers would resume duty within 48 hours of signing, with no victimisation for striking. They would be deployed at once to the Ebola and El Niño work.
Employers would send the allowance demands to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission within 14 days. Collective bargaining would start within 30 days.
Pay is where the sense of being overlooked is sharpest.
The Health Risk Allowance was fixed in September 2015 at Sh2,000 for job groups G to K and Sh3,000 for L to P. Ashira said it has never been reviewed in more than eleven years. Officers in job groups Q to S, field-based officers and former local authority staff receive nothing.
Other frontline cadres have been reviewed. Nurses now get Sh8,000, clinical officers between Sh4,000 and Sh5,000, and doctors Sh20,000.
“This offends Articles 27, 41(2)(a) and 230(5) of the Constitution and section 12(1) of the SRC Act, which requires equal remuneration for work of equal value,” Ashira said.
The union demands a uniform Health Risk Allowance of Sh8,000 a month for all members in job groups G to S, effective July 1, 2025. It also wants an Outbreak Response Hazard Allowance for officers deployed to the Ebola and El Niño responses.
On October 6, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale confirmed Kenya’s first imported case of Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease, for which there is no licensed vaccine or specific treatment. On October 7, the Public Health Officers and Technicians Council directed every registered practitioner to deploy for surveillance, contact tracing, port health screening, infection prevention and safe burials.
The Ministry said on October 20 that the total had risen to nine, including three health workers who treated the first patient.
On September 1, the Ministry, through the Council of Governors, directed all 47 counties to prepare for the El Niño rains. The 2023-2024 El Niño left 175 people dead, 384,216 displaced and 64 health facilities inaccessible.
Ashira said counties cannot carry out the preparedness work or file the readiness reports the Ministry has demanded while the cadre that performs them remains on strike.
Kenya has about 4,200 public health officers for a population approaching 50 million. Only 110 are stationed at the national level, and most of them are due to retire by 2028.
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