Taking Hepatitis Screening to Where People Are: EQPAL Medical Supports Ministry of Health Campaign in Lamu and Mombasa
EQPAL Medical, as exclusive agent for REME-D in Kenya, is supporting an ongoing five-day Hepatitis B and C screening campaign across Lamu and Mombasa counties — part of the Ministry of Health’s programme to work towards the elimination of viral hepatitis in Kenya.
The campaign is being delivered in collaboration with the health departments of Lamu and Mombasa County Governments, together with Ministry of Health institutions including the National AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCOP) and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI).
Reaching beyond the clinic
The defining feature of this campaign is not its scale but its reach.
Screening has been conducted at Hindi Health Centre, community dispensaries, and the Lamu County Blood Transfusion unit — and, working alongside the county’s TimamyCare mobile clinic, at sites well beyond the reach of any permanent diagnostic facility.
Among the sites visited was Hindi GK Prison.
That inclusion carries particular significance. Incarcerated populations worldwide carry a disproportionately high burden of Hepatitis B and C, driven by a combination of transmission risk factors and limited access to preventive care. They are simultaneously among the least likely groups to be reached by routine screening programmes.
A campaign that operates only from established health facilities will, by design, never find them.
Why elimination demands outreach
The World Health Organization’s target for viral hepatitis is not reduction. It is elimination as a public health threat.
Meeting that target rests on a single operational challenge: the majority of people living with hepatitis B or C do not know they are infected. They have no symptoms, no reason to present at a clinic, and no diagnosis on record.
Finding them requires taking diagnostics to where they are — to dispensaries in remote settlements, to mobile clinics, to prisons — rather than waiting for them to arrive at a laboratory.
That principle is what shaped these five days.
EQPAL Medical’s role
As exclusive agent for REME-D in Kenya, EQPAL Medical’s contribution centres on diagnostic capability: ensuring that the screening and molecular confirmation technology deployed in the field is available, supplied, supported, and operable under real conditions — in mobile clinics, in facilities with limited infrastructure, and in locations hours from the nearest laboratory.
Diagnostic technology that cannot travel, or cannot be sustained once it arrives, contributes little to an elimination agenda. Making it work in the field is the task.
Ongoing
The campaign continues, with additional sites scheduled across both counties.
We extend our thanks to the Ministry of Health, NASCOP, KEMRI, and the Lamu and Mombasa county health departments for the coordination behind this work — and to the healthcare workers and community health promoters travelling long distances, in demanding conditions, to deliver it.
To discuss diagnostic solutions, medical supply, or partnership opportunities, contact EQPAL Medical at eqpalmed@gmail.com or +254 748 009 000.
