KEMRI to train Kenyan scientists on vaccine development Nagasaki University to work

KENYA – Japan’s Nagasaki University will from 2023 work with KEMRI Graduate School (KGS) in high-level training of KEMRI and Kenyan scientists in vaccine development. The agreement was reached during a visit to Nagasaki by Prof. Elijah M. Songok, Director of KEMRI Graduate School. The training will be on the whole vaccine development pipeline from basic science and product development to clinical trials.

The vaccine development training will involve the Japanese and Kenyan pharmaceutical industries partnership. Nagasaki University has had a very long-standing partnership with KEMRI in research and research capacity building. Japan and Kenya have been collaborating for over 40 years to create and develop KEMRI into a centre of research excellence not only in Kenya but also in the Eastern Africa region.

KEMRI has formed partnerships with various Japanese Universities such as Nagasaki University to enhance research capacity, which has played a prominent role, as it has not only sent research personnel to work at the Institute, but also provided scholarships for Kenyan research scientists to study in Japan.

Kenya’s Metro Group buys Evercare’s stake in Nairobi-based hospitals

KENYA – The Evercare Health Fund has sold its 54.9 percent stake in Metropolitan Hospital Holdings to co-investor, The Metro Group, which currently holds a 41.8 percent stake in the company.

Metropolitan Hospital Holdings Limited (MHHL), is a holding company that owns Metropolitan Hospital and Ladnan Hospital. The deal, valued at KSh1 billion (US$8.1 million), returns ownership of Metropolitan Hospital Holdings to its original founders, who established it in 1994.

Regulatory filings before the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) indicate that the combined turnover of the two hospitals last year was above KSh1 billion (US$8.1 million), highlighting the attractiveness of private healthcare investments in the country with rickety public health services.

The group’s two hospitals have 160 beds and more than 350 staff members. The facilities have served roughly 300,000 mostly low- and middleincome patients since Evercare invested.

Regulatory Affairs And Policy

NAMIBIA – The Ministry of Health and Social Services has launched a revised National Medicines Policy (NMP), after 24 years, to guide and develop pharmaceutical services in the country to meet the requirements of locals in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases. Minister of Health and Social Services, Dr. Kalumbi Shangula said there was a need to revise the NMP to be more responsive to emerging health needs within communities and to align objectives and strategies of the policy with current national strategic development plans.

Shangula added that Namibia is looking to strengthen pharmaceutical regulatory capacity; improve health product procurement practices and the warehousing and distribution capacity of the central and regional medical stores. This is while ensuring supply chain integrity and improving interoperability of health information and pharmaceutical inventory/stock management tools across the supply chain and beyond. He said the policy document, which guides all strategic and operational level activities for the pharmaceutical sector, has 11 strategic objectives, each with several strategies recommended to be employed to facilitate the policy implementation.

Dr. Kalumbi Shangula - Minister of Health and Social Services, Namibia