Nairobi to Kigali: Mobile Clinic mission

Mr Daniel Kimemia and Mr Joseph Gachanja set off from Nairobi and travelled 1,200km to attend the biennial Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC 2023) in Kigali, Rwanda in one of Amref's solar-powered mobile clinics. The duo were on a mission to raise awareness of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). A team of medics travelled with them to offer free screening services to those attending AHAIC 2023.

The custom-built clinics, launched in 2022 in a partnership between Amref, AstraZeneca and the Kenyan Ministry of Health, are fitted with solar-powered fridges and backup power supply while timely data capture and reporting are facilitated through onsite web-enabled computers.

Amref Flying Doctors (AFD)  replenish the mobile clinics whenever they are in hard-to-reach areas to ensure their effective deployment.

Caroline Mbindyo, CEO of Amref Health Innovations, said data showed many people were not going to health facilities for vaccination. “When we asked them why they were not going for Covid-19 vaccinations, it was inconvenient to them because they had lots of things to do like going to the market and would not prioritise particularly after the pandemic was seen to have ‘ reduced’.

"We tried to think of ways we could get these vaccines to communities and this is what we came up with because we were looking at how communities behave; what is their culture, who do they trust?”

The clinics are staffed by trained health workers, including community health worker volunteers from the communities the clinics serve.

“It is powered by solar, has its own tank which means it carries its own water, has a refrigerator which means that it is able to maintain the cold chain for the vaccines it moves around with," she added.

There is a growing burden of NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa. Now, mobile clinics are being equipped with a portable x-ray, a portable ultrasound to offer screening services for communities.

Ms Mbindyo further points out why this is important: “A lot of people in Africa who suffer from NCDs get diagnosed very late which means that it is more costly for them, for the health system and the health outcomes are likely to be poorer, we are hoping to deploy them in other countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Zanzibar where they can be able to reach communities that are unserved or under-served.”