The Kenyan government’s health data sharing agreement with the US government has raised eyebrows among Kenyans.
A section of Kenyans argued that the agreement to share health data with the US government is unconstitutional.
Critics claim the deal, which President William Ruto is reportedly poised to sign in the US, would surrender sweeping access to Kenyan medical records and specimens and circumvent key national privacy and health laws.
The agreements, Ruto is set to sign with the US government include the Model Specimen Sharing Agreement and the PEPFAR Bilateral MOU.
The agreement would allegedly grant near real-time access to Kenya’s national health database and allow US entities to receive patient-level diagnostic and sequencing data often without anonymization, individual consent, or effective Kenyan legal jurisdiction.
Critics argued that the agreement shall be construed in accordance with US federal law and not Kenyan law.
Kenya would also be required to hand over disease specimens within 5 days of the US government’s request.
The US pharmaceutical companies will use the specimens to create vaccines for diseases; however, Kenya will not get any guaranteed benefit in return.
“Failure to fulfill commitments could result in changes in planned assistance or discontinuation of this MOU,” the agreement reads in part.
In the deal US government will not just get statistics but direct system access to query any patient record, rights to audit 5% of health facilities randomly selected, access to lab results, treatment records, epidemiological data, metadata, and system architecture, real-time disease surveillance, and all diagnostic and testing data.
Dr. Mugambi Laibuta, in an advisory, cautioned the government against proceeding with the deals, noting that they pose critical constitutional and sovereignty risks.
“This Agreement, as drafted, is not legally compliant, poses critical constitutional and sovereignty risks, and must be significantly renegotiated before Kenya can lawfully sign or operationalize it.”
