A government report has flagged possible illegal organs trafficking following an investigation into kidney transplants at a hospital in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County.
The Kenya Blood Transfusion and Transplant Service (KBTTS) has found ‘suspicious activity for trafficking’ after investigating 372 kidney transplants at Mediheal Fertility and Transplant Center since 2018.
This damning finding by a 12-member committee appointed by Dr Maurice Wakwabubi, acting CEO at KBTTS, after a fact-finding mission at the Level 6 health facility with other outlets in Rwanda and Uganda, could trigger a full-scale investigation against the hospital.
Kenya Tissue and Transplant Authority CEO Wakwabubi Maurice during an interview at his office in Nairobi on April 4, 2024.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
“In our opinion, the committee thinks there is suspicious activity for trafficking but there is no sufficient evidence,” states the report, which has been handed to Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale.
“An example is, that there was a common name, Yusuf, which was noted in the foreign files and listed as next of kin in files sampled. There is a need to ascertain this status and investigate why this name is listed as such and the relationship with the foreign recipients and foreign donors,” the report adds.
Members of the investigating committee are Dr Evelynn Chege, who was the team lead, Dr Philip Cheptinga, Dr Victor Okwisa, Dr Peter Maritim, Professor Thomas Chokwe, Dr John Ngigi, Dr Jonathan Nthusi, Dr Anthony Chesire, Dr Gratia Muyu, Dr Geoffrey Monari, Dr Kiprono Chepkok and Dr Peter Ng’ethu.
Last year, the Kenya Renal Association (KRA) called for the immediate suspension of the operating licenses for Mediheal over alleged unethical kidney transplants that it said were being performed there.
In a statement dated May 3, KRA noted it had received reports of "transplant commercialization and transplant tourism" at the hospital which is prohibited by law.
This compelled the Ministry of Health to task KBTTS to investigate the claims. KBTTS is mandated to ensure access to safe and ethical use of human blood, cells, tissues and organs, and the safety of donors and recipients.
“The issues raised include concern over Israeli nationals receiving transplants in Kenya and returning to their home country, organized syndicate evading regulations in Kenya as occurs in organ trafficking, lack of relationship between the organ provider and the recipient, evidence indicating that several kidney transplants involving foreign kidney donors have taken place in Eldoret at a clinic called Mediheal, allegations of doctors of Indian origin carrying out the transplants and organ providers originating from Central Asia, ” the report notes.
“I can assure you nothing will be swept under the carpet because I will summon the committee on Monday to discuss what they have established and will close down Mediheal for good if I have to because we cannot allow this to go on and put the lives of Kenyans at risk,” Mr Duale said.
While reacting to a German TV investigative documentary aired on April 11, 2025, which established that an online medical company known as Medlead has been using Mediheal facilities in Eldoret to harvest kidneys from Kenyans at a fee and exporting them to German patients, Mr Duale said this must stop.
“I have watched that documentary by the Germans and it is so shocking and unfortunate. I saw a Kenyan boy who showed us visible scars as proof his kidney was taken away at a fee of Sh294,000 and when he got home a huge chunk of that money was stolen. I just took up this ministry the other day and now this cannot go on ever again on my watch,” CS Duale told Nation.
The team also found that out of the 372 kidney transplants done at Mediheal, there was a mortality rate of four per cent, which means 15 people died between 2018 and 2020.
While conducting a clinical audit on Mediheal’s ‘specialist team’, the committee expressed concern that Mediheal’s lead nephrology consultant has an expired license.
The team also found that despite there being no record of minutes available to verify that the ‘specialist team' held meetings, Mediheal’s transplant coordinator is a business development officer by training with no medical capacity to handle kidney transplants.
“372 transplants have been conducted with a majority of transplant cases from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, DRC and Somalia as well as a few international cases namely Australia, Israel, Japan, USA and the UK since November 2018.
It was indicated during a presentation by Mediheal that most of their transplant patients are self-referral and word of mouth from beneficiaries of successful kidney transplants,” the report highlights.
“The oldest recipient was 80, while the youngest recipient was eight years old. During the kidney transplants, there were 15 rejections of the organs due to delayed graft function, 17 major infections such as Covid-19, fungal and bacterial infections as well as pneumonia,60 minor infections such as wound infections, Herpes zoster, chicken pox and urinary tract infections (UTI),” the report says.
An online medical company known as Medlead has been using Mediheal facilities in Eldoret to harvest kidneys from Kenyans at a fee and exporting them to German patients.
“Mediheal performed three open surgery transplants, 369 laparoscopic surgeries with a mortality of 15(4%) and a morbidity of 10,” the report adds.
All the kidneys used for transplants at Mediheal, KNBTTS established, came from living donors with each recipient forking out Sh3.2 million ($25000) on average while leaving no paper trail.
“Mediheal has operated on quite a number of Israeli patients all with foreign donors that is non-Israelis and the fact-finding team was not able to pinpoint the particular patient being referred to in the transplantation Society letter unless more details/ identifiers of the recipient and the donor of the kidney were to be shared. Of all foreign surgeries on both donor and recipient were cash transactions,” the report says.
Mediheal, the committee said, has been conducting paired exchange in transplants due to unmatching blood groups minus any structure.
“The transplant donor-recipient workups are conducted by the transplant team made up of the transplant surgeon, nephrologists, and anesthesiologist.
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing and blood testing was outsourced by the facility to AGILES Laboratory in India, the HLA laboratory used NHS Technology to map the Genes PTN updates Gene every three months,” the report says. Mediheal’s lead nephrologist told the committee that the health facility has an active WhatsApp group for donor-recipient and himself the medical doctor.
“All recipients are referred back to the local nephrologists using the discharge summary. No structured follow-up for international recipients,” the report says.
