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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Trop. Dis.
Sec. Antimicrobial Resistance
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fitd.2025.1540713
This article is part of the Research Topic Antimicrobial Resistance Response Perspectives in Africa View all 3 articles
Kenya's National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance: Measuring Implementation Progress
Provisionally accepted
Joseph Mukoko 1*
Ndinda Kusu 1
Tamara Hafner 1 Nkatha Gitonga 1
Niranjan Konduri 1
Mohan P Joshi 1 Cynthia Odhiambo 1 Evelyne Wesangula 2 Emmanuel Tanui 2 Allan Azegele 3 Romona Ndanyi 3- 1 Management Sciences for Health, Medford, United States
- 2 Ministry of Health (Kenya), Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
- 3 Ministry of agriculture and livestock development, Nairobi, Kenya
Kenya has established a multisectoral national action plan (NAP) on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which provides a common framework for action by all stakeholders from different sectors in implementing AMR containment activities. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the NAP-AMR has been weak necessitating the development of a multisectoral M&E framework in 2021. Using this M&E tool, Kenya's highest level technical body charged with containing AMR-the National Antimicrobial Stewardship Interagency Committee (NASIC), led a review of the NAP-AMR (2017-2022). During the review, 16 out of 47 counties had established County Antimicrobial Stewardship Interagency Committees mirroring the NASIC. A total of 93% (38 out of 41) of activities in the NAP-AMR M&E framework for human health were either completed or ongoing compared to 64% [28 out of 44] that were completed or ongoing in the animal and crop sectors). Key challenges for implementation of the NAP-AMR included lack of adequate funding; difficulties in effective collaboration across and within relevant sectors; weak laboratory-clinical interface; erratic supply of laboratory reagents, equipment, and supplies leading to underutilization of microbiology laboratories; and poor internet connectivity at the various facilities negatively affecting transmission of AMR data to the national level. Major learnings and recommendations include strengthening governance arrangements at the national and county level; costing of the NAP-AMR; and ramping up advocacy efforts to political leadership to gather further support for actions on AMR-were integrated into the next iteration of the NAP-AMR (2023-2027), which was released during the November 2023 World AMR Awareness Week.
Keywords: National Action Plan, antimicrobial resistance, Monitoring And Evaluation, Kenya, One Health
Received: 06 Dec 2024; Accepted: 11 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mukoko, Kusu, Hafner, Gitonga, Konduri, Joshi, Odhiambo, Wesangula, Tanui, Azegele and Ndanyi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Joseph Mukoko, Management Sciences for Health, Medford, United States
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