Kenya to benefit from KSh 6.8bn project for comprehensive newborn care ▷ Kenya News

- The project aims at equipping local hospitals with the latest equipment and technology that safeguards lives of preterm babies

- Part of the finances will also go into training medical personnel to sustainably use NEST360° equipment

- NEST360° will also invest in innovation that aims to invent equipment able to withstand heat, dust and humidity break down

- The equipment will help deal with breathing difficulties, jaundice, infection, and hypothermia among young ones

Newborn mortality rate in the country is envisioned to sharply dwindle following the launch of an eight-year funding project targeting countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The KSh 6.8 billion project is being undertaken by Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST360°) and aims to equip local health facilities with technology that helps preterm babies breath.

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Part of the money will also go into training medical personnel to use the equipment and to upscale innovation of equipment suitable for the Kenyan market. The Kenyan project was launched on Friday, October 4.

NEST360° will develop and deliver a package that will supply a bundle of affordable and robust medical devices to hospitals to help reduce the number of babies who die in the first month of life.

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The equipment is selected to address preventable illnesses that kill newborns – including breathing difficulties, jaundice, infection, and hypothermia.

In Kenya, the project is jointly run by the Nairobi-based Center for Public Health and Development (CPHD) and Kenya Medical Research Institute’s Wellcome Trust Research Programme.

Speaking during the official rollout, CPHD’s Executive Director David Adudans termed the undertaking as a game changer in the health sector and one aimed at reducing preterm deaths rate by 12 per 1,000.

“We have seen and lived and talked about pre-term babies dying for lack of expertise and equipment. This should not be so.

This intervention is a game-changer as we shall not only be supplying equipment but building capacity of the clinical and biomedical workforce. Our goal is to reduce the newborn mortality rate by 12 per 1,000 by 2030 as by SDG3.2," said Adudans.

Adudans disclosed that the initiative was birthed out of intensive research across medical facilities in Kenya where several pain points were discovered.

Among challenges that came to the fore include lack of necessary technology, human resource shortage and high market price of much-needed equipment.

The challenges will be addressed through: Innovation of required technology, Educating technicians and clinicians to use and sustain NEST tools and through shaping a functioning market to ensure that NEST is distributed and maintained with financing options for public and private hospitals in Africa.

To save newborn lives, NEST360° noted that there was a need for technologies that are effective, affordable, rugged, and easy to maintain.

“Out of every six machines procured for use around the world for Africa, only one is easy to maintain and are designed to withstand the heat, the dust, the humidity break down, we experience all year round.

By working with specialists who understand the challenges we face, we have made a major stride in equipping our medical facilities," Adudans added.

NEST360° was founded mostly by women who, share an unshakeable belief that all of the pieces of the solution - technological, political, educational, economic and sociological - are necessary and must be implemented together to sustainably prevent newborn deaths in Africa.

Its partners include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, The ELMA Foundation, The Lemelson Foundation, the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation, and individual donors.

Education and research partners are the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Rice University’s Rice 360° Institute for Global Health.

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