Duale: Afya.ke is State-owned but not certified to provide health services

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale./FILEHealth Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has acknowledged that Afya.ke is government-owned but said the digital health platform is not certified to host public health services, reigniting a dispute over its abrupt deactivation.

Duale described the platform as a “private arrangement” before shutting it down in mid-October 2026 and directing a transition to the national Taifa Care/Tibabu system.

The move disrupted access to medical records for more than 170 health facilities in Murang’a county, which had relied on Afya.ke since 2023 to digitise its health infrastructure.

The shutdown forced hospitals and dispensaries to revert to paper-based records, disrupting services for thousands of patients who lost immediate access to their medical histories, prescriptions and electronic billing records.

Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata protested the decision, arguing that Afya.ke was free of charge, while the transition to Taifa Care would introduce a fee of two per cent per processed claim, capped at Sh5,000.

The county has also argued in court that the replacement system lacks the advanced telemedicine capabilities offered by Afya.ke, which it says supported more than 25,000 patients with chronic illnesses.

Duale was pressed to explain the origins of the standoff during an interview on Citizen TV on Sunday night.

He said Afya.ke was developed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) under the Jubilee administration but its developers never applied for national certification.

“There were three counties that were using a system that did not belong to the Ministry of Health. That system belonged to the National Intelligence Service under President Uhuru’s government,” he said.

Besides Murang’a, Duale identified Makueni and Tharaka Nithi as the other counties that had been using the platform.

The CS said the directive to migrate to the certified National Digital Health Integration System, operated under the Digital Health Agency (DHA), followed consultations with the affected county governments.

The system forms part of the national digital infrastructure intended to integrate healthcare data and services.

“We have been talking to the governor of Murang’a for the last nine months. Today, I have sent him a text message,” Duale said.

He said he had urged Kang’ata to withdraw the court case and visit him at Afya House, where arrangements would be made to have Afya.ke certified.

“Because we want the doctors who serve to use the Practice 360 app, we want the patients in Murang’a, like other patients in the country, to use the Afya Yangu app. But you know, my good friend Kang’ata is playing politics,” he said.

The Afya Yangu platform enables patients to access services including self-registration, biometric identification, appointment scheduling, prescription tracking and consent management.

Practice 360 on the other hand replaces older OTP-based authorisation methods to prevent code sharing and enforce accountability alongside biometric health IDs.

Duale maintained that the dispute was not about the ownership of Afya.ke but its certification, accusing Kang’ata of failing to comply with the ministry’s advisory.

However, the governor said the county was ready to follow the prescribed procedures to secure certification for the system.

In a post on X, Kang’ata said: “Murang’a will do so.”