Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has inaugurated the expanded Polio Laboratory at the Kenya Medical Research Institute’s Centre for Virus Research (CVR), a move aimed at strengthening disease surveillance.
The state-of-the-art facility will serve as both the National and Inter-country Reference Laboratory, supporting Kenya as well as Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Comoros in polio diagnostics and outbreak monitoring.
It will also enhance in-country genomic sequencing and cut turnaround times for disease detection.
According to the Ministry of Health, the laboratory is backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in partnership with the Gates Foundation, eHealth Africa, and other development partners.
“The lab aligns with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) for Health by expanding access to essential services, especially at the grassroots,” the ministry said in a statement on X.
The ministry added that while anchored in polio eradication, the facility is already operating as a multi-pathogen genomic platform, sequencing Mpox, measles, rubella, and enteric viruses to enhance preparedness against future health threats.
The laboratory, the ministry said, reaffirms Kenya’s commitment to eradicating polio while advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) under the Taifa Care Model.
