Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has called for a full investigation into organ transplant activities in Kenya following growing allegations of organ trafficking.
Speaking after receiving a report from a multidisciplinary task force, Duale said the findings point to potential regulatory breaches and raise serious concerns about the integrity of the country’s transplant system.
“There are credible grounds for a thorough probe. Some donors and recipients come from advanced health systems to access Kenya’s relatively new transplant services, yet the reasons for their choices are unclear,” Duale said.
The task force—made up of kidney specialists, ethicists, health ministry officials, academic experts, and representatives from key medical bodies—focused heavily on Mediheal Hospital in Eldoret.
It found the facility lacked adequate documentation to verify donor-recipient relationships. Some donors were of foreign nationalities, and Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) testing was conducted in India without Ministry of Health approval for exporting human samples.
The team also noted that there were no translated documents for non-English-speaking patients, raising ethical concerns around informed consent.
Additionally, transplants had reportedly been conducted on high-risk patients, including individuals with prostate cancer and poor donor-recipient matches.
“Foreigners seeking transplants in Kenya must be registered in a centralized database and submit verified documentation proving their relationship with the donor from their country of origin,” Duale emphasized.
In response, the Ministry of Health will launch a nationwide audit of Mediheal and seven other transplant facilities to ensure compliance with national standards.
Duale also revealed that new National Standards and Guidelines for Transplant Services have been developed and are awaiting approval.
These will guide clinical practices and safeguard both donors and recipients.
Further, the ministry is working on a legal and regulatory framework to combat organ trafficking and transplant tourism. “This framework will close legal loopholes that currently allow for illicit, unregulated transplants,” he said.
The Transplantation Society had earlier flagged a surge in Israeli nationals undergoing kidney transplants in Kenya, with allegations that some procedures involved trafficked foreign donors—many reportedly taking place at Mediheal Hospital.
