The Kenyan government has launched a nationwide biometric registration for the dependents of Social Health Authority (SHA) members.
It’s a step towards a fully integrated national health identification ecosystem, with authorities claiming it will eliminate duplicate registrations and enhance medical history accessibility.
SHA biometric registration will only cover dependents aged 7 to 17 years because of legal restrictions and the lack of fully mature biometric characteristics for minors below 7 years.
“Why 7 to 17? It’s all because of two reasons. Number one, because the law that we are using only allows us to collect biometrics for 7 to 17,” stated Eng. Antony Lenaiyara, the CEO of the Digital Health Agency.
He added, “Scientifically, the biometrics will mature after some age, so the earlier ages the biometrics have not yet matured.”
Kenyan health officials say the government has distributed over 8,067 biometric scanners across public health facilities to support the registration process.
This biometric data collection comes a few days after Kenya announced plans to sell its citizens’ data collected through public platforms.
It also kicks off 6 months after the Kenyan government signed a five-year health and data partnership with the USA. The pact requires Kenya to share aggregate disease surveillance data with the USA in return for health aid.
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During the event, the Ministry of Health also formally adopted revised Public Officers Medical Fund tariffs. These new agreements aim to relieve public workers of out-of-pocket payments.
“Through the newly executed agreements, healthcare facilities across various levels of care will provide services under a structured framework that promotes quality, accountability, and seamless access to treatment for public officers and their eligible dependents,” SHA noted in a statement.
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale attended the event where these announcements were made. In his speech, Duale promised to penalise public hospitals contracted under SHA if they fail to dispense drugs to patients.
“I will make a deduction of close to 38 per cent of your claim,” the CS warned public health care facilities.
