Campaign Update — Day Two: Confirmation Testing in the Field
The Hepatitis B and C screening campaign in Lamu County continued into its second day, with the focus shifting to the part of the process that determines whether a screening programme translates into treatment: molecular confirmation.
Processing on site
Samples collected across the campaign’s outreach points are being extracted and analysed on site by our joint EQPAL Medical and REME-D technical team, using REME-D’s automated nucleic acid extraction systems and real-time PCR platforms deployed directly at the campaign base.
This arrangement is not standard practice for outreach screening, and the reason it matters is practical rather than technical.
In a conventional outreach model, rapid screening is carried out in the community while any samples requiring confirmation are transported to a central laboratory — often in another county. Results return days or weeks later, by which time contacting the patient may no longer be possible. People move. Phone numbers change. Those who travelled to a mobile clinic once may not return.
Processing confirmation on site closes that gap. A patient who screens positive can be confirmed, counselled, and referred into the treatment pathway within the same campaign window.
The operational picture
Day two’s work involved sample registration and labelling, nucleic acid extraction, PCR setup for both HBV and HCV panels, and result verification — carried out by a joint team of Kenyan and Egyptian laboratory scientists working side by side.
The equipment running these confirmations is the same technology on which our teams trained healthcare workers earlier this year, in the certified programme delivered with the Ministry of Health and NASCOP. The intent has always been that the capability remains in the county after the campaign vehicles leave.
Ongoing
The campaign continues across further sites in Lamu and Mombasa counties in the coming days.
We thank the Ministry of Health, NASCOP, KEMRI, and the Lamu and Mombasa county health departments for their coordination, and the laboratory and clinical teams working long days to deliver this.
To discuss diagnostic solutions, medical supply, or partnership opportunities, contact EQPAL Medical at eqpalmed@gmail.com or +254 748 009 000.
