24 May 2025

0:00 We are deploying community health promoters to bring vital health information and services directly to communities as part of our commitment to a sustainable and equitable future by securing the health and well-being of all women, children and adolesccents. The community health promoter plays a very key role in the health sector in Kenya. They play a critical role because they move from one household to the other offering services, health services to their communities, to individuals and to everybody at large. It is important to note that each

0:46 community health promoter services 100 households in their local communities. And these community health promoters they have roles and responsibilities at the community level. One being connecting communities with health services. These are people who act as trusted community members and are trained to provide essential health services and connect people with formal health facilities. They bring health services closer to the people particularly to those in rural areas where access to formal health care might be limited. The community health

1:33 promoter has many roles and responsibilities and especially the sensitization of the community on the importance of healthy lifestyle and of the quality health services. Equally, it is the role of the community health promoter to provide disease surveillance by reporting early signs of imminent health disaster or emergencies, enrollment and monitoring of the health status of members of the household assigned to the community health promoters. And in Kenya, we have 100 households assigned to every community health promoters out of the 107

2:19 831 community health promoters. They keep and maintain a record of members of a household assigned to that community health promoter. The CHP provides appropriate health advice to an assigned household in a language that the members of the household understand, including advising them on appropriate sanitation and hygiene techniques, including household water treatment, which they have the treatment in their kit. Our CHPs render first aid services to an assigned household and where necessary make referrals to the link facility. In our

3:07 roll out of the universal health coverage, we have come up with the primary health care networks that will help the grouping of geographical grouping of facilities within a stipulated area and that will help the CHPS with their referral system from the household to the nearest level of facility. The CHPS provide support to their assigned household on quality family- based care and support for a patient. And equally, they submit reports at such intervals as shall be determined by the county director of health on the health of each member of an assigned household and the barriers

3:53 to health and health care in the household to the community health officer. They collect information on the health status and the assigned households. They equally report incidents of side effects of drugs at the community level. In Kenya, we have had all the counties using the electronic community health information system. And this is whereby our community health promoters they use it for routine community health services. Already the community health promoters through its community health promoters have been

4:41 able to register 8,572,000 households and against the country's target of 12,500 households. And this translates to 69% of our households. And out of this 7,327,000 uh have been revisited by our CHPS for routine community health services. 19 million people have been screened for hypertension and out of this 729,833 people were referred to a health

5:29 facility for further assessment and management. Out of the routine visits, 344,697 pregnant women were identified in the households and 134,000 of them were identified and referred to a health facility for antiatal services for child health. 7,142,000 children under 5 years have been assessed for common childhood ailments including malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia. The

6:14 information from the households through the electronic community health information system assists the ministry in policy formulation and equally in planning better for in terms of uh budget allocation for communicable and non-communicable diseases. Albate the all these achievements, we must recognize the fact that we keep on improving. One of the biggest challenges that I know that some community health promoters face is the vast geographical areas that they have to cover as they have to walk long distances to offer health services to the hardto-reach

7:00 areas. And indeed the government is looking into ways to mobilize resources to see how to assist these community health promoters as logistical approaches to reach the population in their household. And equally in some areas we have unstable network where we need to improve in terms of technology and uh ensure that the community health promoters are having seamless uh communication from the ground to the national level. Therefore, I'm calling upon all agencies, all partners, uh development partners, financial

7:46 institutions and people of goodwill to come so that we join hands with our community health promoters to see that the burden of diseases has reduced drastically in this country. My name is Mary Modoni. I am the principal secretary for public health and professional standards in the ministry of health in Kenya. Thank you.