Research That Answers
Africa's Most Consequential
Health Questions

Infectious and parasitic diseases remain the primary cause of premature mortality across sub-Saharan Africa. KEMRI's research in this domain is built on over four decades of field science — long-term cohort studies in malaria-endemic regions of western Kenya, clinical trials of novel antiretroviral regimens, vector control evaluations in coastal and highland ecologies, and molecular epidemiology of drug-resistant pathogens.

Our infectious disease researchers combine field epidemiology with laboratory science to address questions that neither approach can answer alone: why do some individuals develop severe malaria while others living in the same community remain asymptomatic? How are drug-resistance mutations spreading through Kenya's HIV-positive population? What ecological and social factors determine the geographic distribution of leishmaniasis in arid and semi-arid Kenya?

Africa harbours the greatest human genetic diversity on Earth. Yet African genomes remain profoundly underrepresented in the global databases that govern pharmaceutical development, disease risk assessment, and precision medicine. KEMRI's genomics programme exists to correct this imbalance — generating African genomic data, training African genomic scientists, and building the bioinformatic infrastructure that will make African genetic diversity a resource for African health rather than a gap in global science.

Our pathogen genomics work is particularly consequential. The Centre for Virus Research's genomic surveillance capabilities — sequencing circulating pathogens at speed and scale across Kenya's regions — have established KEMRI as a WHO Collaborating Centre and a critical node in the global early-warning system for pandemic-potential pathogens.

Kenya's health system faces a dual challenge: the persistent burden of infectious disease on one side and the rapidly growing burden of non-communicable diseases on the other, both against a backdrop of constrained resources, significant geographic health inequities, and the ambitious goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030. KEMRI's public health and health systems research is organised around helping Kenya navigate this challenge.

Our epidemiologists, health economists, health systems researchers, and social scientists work with Kenya's Ministry of Health, county governments, and development partners to understand what is working in Kenya's health system, what is not, and what evidence-based interventions can most efficiently close the gap between health system aspiration and health system reality.

Non-communicable diseases now account for a significant and growing share of Kenya's disease burden, yet the clinical and epidemiological knowledge base for NCDs in African populations remains poorly developed compared with infectious disease research. Most cardiovascular risk calculators, cancer screening guidelines, and diabetes management protocols were developed in European and North American populations — and perform poorly when applied to Kenyan and African patients.

KEMRI's NCD research programme generates the African-specific evidence needed to change this. Our cancer epidemiology studies characterise the true incidence and risk factor profiles of breast, cervical, prostate, and oesophageal cancers in Kenya. Our cardiovascular research defines the relationship between traditional and emerging risk factors and cardiovascular events in Kenyan communities. Our diabetes research examines pathophysiology, glycaemic control determinants, and complication prevention in Kenyan populations.

Kenya's maternal mortality ratio, while improving, remains unacceptably high — and the gaps in outcomes between Kenya's richest and poorest counties, between urban and rural populations, and between populations with and without access to skilled birth attendants represent a persistent public health failure. KEMRI's SRACH research programme exists to generate the evidence that will close these gaps.

Our researchers investigate the determinants of maternal mortality and morbidity, the effectiveness of postnatal care interventions, the nutritional factors that influence child growth and development, and the social, structural, and health system factors that shape adolescent sexual and reproductive health outcomes. We work in partnership with Kenya's counties, with international research partners, and with the communities whose health our research serves.

Africa's medicinal plant biodiversity represents one of the world's most significant and underexplored natural pharmaceutical resources. Traditional healers across Kenya have employed plant-derived treatments for centuries — treatments whose active compounds, mechanisms of action, and therapeutic potential remain largely uninvestigated by modern science. KEMRI's natural products programme exists to bridge this gap.

Working with traditional knowledge holders, field botanists, and pharmaceutical chemists, our researchers identify, collect, and screen medicinal plant compounds against priority disease targets — antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, malaria parasites, HIV, and emerging viral pathogens. Compounds demonstrating activity move through preclinical development pipelines that KEMRI manages in collaboration with international pharmaceutical partners.