One Health commitments: Kenya moves to tighten antibiotic use amid resistance fears
Public Health Principal Secretary Mary Muthoni. She says the government now plans to strengthen regulation on antibiotic distribution and usage.
What you need to know:
- Easy access to antibiotics is driving resistance in Kenya, putting millions at risk of untreatable infection.
- Kenya has, therefore, joined the global push to regulate antibiotics as misuse fuels rise of deadly drug resistant diseases.
Sandra Omulisia caught a cold about two weeks ago, and the first thought that came to mind was to get an over-the-counter antibiotic.
On the first day, she tried homemade concoctions, but they did not work well for her. “I went to buy what I thought had worked for me before, and from other people’s testimonies,” she tells Healthy Nation.
She got one, and after three days of taking the drugs, her condition did not improve. Sandra went back to the nearest pharmacy and asked for another type of drug. This time, she needed a quick fix, and she told the pharmacist to sell her a drug that would not fail.
“I had stopped going to work. I couldn’t even speak on the phone because I had a sore throat. Everything was uncomfortable, and I just needed to be okay,” she says.
Self-prescription trap
Sandra, like many Kenyans, falls into the trap of self-prescription, especially on antibiotics. This, however, has an impact on the effectiveness of the drugs they take, especially when they take them without a doctor’s prescription.
Dr Kiplangat Sigei, medical affairs manager at Biomerieux, explains that when people keep taking antibiotics without proper diagnosis and prescription from a doctor, the risk of antibiotics becoming resistant because of overuse and incorrect use is high.
He says the ripple effect is that it will increase multidrug-resistant infections that are expensive to treat, as well as more sickness and deaths from infections that could have been treated. This is known as antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections difficult to treat.
“We need to build the culture of ‘test before you treat’ by educating the public that not all infections are treated with antibiotics,” he says. “Pharmacies can also be audited to ensure certain antibiotics have a prescription before dispensing.”
While this is not happening in Kenya yet, other countries, especially in Europe, have enforced stringent rules on antibiotic dispensation. A 2022 survey by the World Health Organisation shows that a survey conducted across the EU revealed that only eight per cent of respondents consumed antibiotics without a prescription.
A new law in France called Social Security Financing Act, 2024, ordered that pharmacists need compulsory training to understand the new procedures of dispensing medicines without a prescription after a rapid diagnostic orientation test.
This is because their law does not allow easy dispensation of antibiotics without a diagnosis to confirm that a patient actually needs the drug. After conducting the tests even at a local pharmacy, a patient is given a certificate of issue and the pharmacist is required to record the information.
At the concluded One Health Summit in France last week, one of the commitments that Kenya made was to introduce stringent laws on antibiotic use to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Health ministry launched the 2023/27 National Action Plan on Prevention and Containment of Antimicrobial Resistance. It had six key objectives, including increasing awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), establishing a One Health approach for tackling it, enhancing infection prevention and control, surveillance and accelerated research on the mechanism of AMR emergence and transmission, and its impact on the economy.
Mary Muthoni, Public Health Principal Secretary, told Healthy Nation that the government now plans to strengthen regulations on antibiotic distribution and usage. “These measures aim to preserve the efficacy of existing antimicrobial drugs and safeguard future health outcomes of all Kenyans,” she said.
Kenya also joined to become a member of Preventing Zoonotic Diseases Emergence. It is a science-based community initiative aimed at advancing research, advocacy and collaboration to zoonosis (diseases that jump from animals to humans). PS Muthoni said Kenya’s membership will help in strengthening the country’s detection systems.
“It will enhance monitoring of zoonotic ‘spillover’ events, where pathogens transfer from animals to humans, like the Rift Valley Fever. It will also give us access to international expertise, research networks, and funding mechanisms to strengthen national surveillance and response systems.”
She said Kenya will reduce reliance on emergency response by identifying and mitigating risks before outbreaks escalate. The country also became a signatory to the One Health Data Convergence aimed at integrating data from the health, animal and environmental sectors.
Convergence
As it is now, all three sectors work independently. Their convergence will help in early identification of disease patterns across species, improved outbreak response times and enhanced national and regional health security.
The latest national food and nutrition analysis data shows that about 740,000 children in Kenya aged 6–59 months required treatment for acute malnutrition between April 2025 and March 2026. This is why, during the summit last week, Kenya launched a new AI-based tool, run by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), linking it to the national drought early warning system to predict cases of acute malnutrition in children.
It was originally developed by the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with researchers at Cornell University, with expansion and testing in Kenya supported by the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action, an international partnership led by the University of Edinburgh with Save the Children, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and Community Jameel.
In a press release, ILRI said that this becomes the first forecasting method in Kenya’s early warning system designed to anticipate child-specific food security emergencies. PS Muthoni said this new tool will help address malnutrition to prevent long-term impacts on cognitive development, workforce productivity, and national economic growth.
“Kenya’s commitments at the One Health Summit represent a forward-looking, transformative approach to public health,” she said.
The WHO and its quadripartite partners also announced the extension and expansion of the One Health High-Level Expert Panel, which is the world’s leading scientific advisory body on One Health. The WHO assumed chairmanship and will lead One Health coordination.
The other quadripartite partners are the United Nations Environment Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health.
The WHO said its mandate will now run through 2027, with a new phase planned for 2027–29, reinforcing its role in three priority areas, such as shaping the global research agenda, supporting the One Health Joint Plan of Action, and driving high-level advocacy grounded in science and evidence.
“The health of people, animals and the environment we share are inextricably interwoven, and we cannot protect one without protecting all three,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.
