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A balanced diet and good nutrition are not only important as a source of energy for our active lives but are critical for our defense against disease. According to the world health organization (WHO) a healthy diet helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases, including such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

While there is no cure from the COVID-19 infection and indeed no food can prevent the infection, a nutritious and healthy diet rich in protective foods can boost one’s immunity and capacity to fight the infection.

The Oromo proverb is a true reflection of the emergency situation individuals, families, communities, societies, nations and continents are being faced with. While this is seen as some as an opportunity to help humanity it is conversely also resulting in inward thinking as people and peoples struggle to save themselves. The true situation of anyone is really within families many of whom are in isolation, quarantine or staying at home.

Getting food to the people and keeping food production going in times of curfews, movement restrictions and lock-downs are emerging to be the biggest challenges governments across the globe have to contend with when considering or implementing any forms of mass containment as responses necessitated by the COVID 19 pandemic.

There is a famous Kalenjin proverb that states ‘We share the same sun but we do not share the same roofs.’ The Kenya government has struggled over the past few weeks to convince people to stay at home. In addition, while private sector struggled to allow for remote working public sector responded fairly quickly then struggled in maintaining isolationist approaches to remote working and are now slowly calling people back to work: one by one, and meeting by meeting.

Why do Kenyan police mostly respond with brutality to many situations they are faced with? The images from Likoni in Mombasa County, of police beating citizens in line to board the ferry two hours before the 7PM -5AM curfew are a major disappointment. 

At the time of writing videos of officers bragging about how they were in control and “would show the public who’s the boss” could be viewed in comparison to visibly agitated Kibra residents, in Nairobi County, threatening violent exchanges with police in violation of the curfew.

These Q&As relate to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection and pregnancy – guidance for healthcare professionals: Version 4 – 26 March 2020 and Occupational health advice for employers and pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic – 26 March 2020 published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Royal College of Midwives and Royal College of Paediat

The Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO), University of Nairobi, held an Intellectual Property Commercialization training for members of the Colleges’ Management and Researchers on 5th and 6th March 2020. The purpose of the training was to impart knowledge on intellectual property identification, the value of intellectual property protection, important aspects of a business plan, product development and testing,  concept feasibility, branding and marketing, legal considerations, innovation incubation and how to asses a potential product for commercialization.

One of our key roles in writing this blog on health systems in Kenya is to assess and provide accurate, timely information and decision options for healthcare practitioners to be able to make the best decisions at the time in implementing what the Ministry of Health says. We analyse only credible sources of information, which in this case are the Kenya Government, World Health Organisation and scientific publications that are peer reviewed.

The office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Innovation and Enterprise (DVC-RIE) as part of the initiative to develop a Policy Briefs Series organized a policy brief training that was conducted on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at the University of Nairobi Towers, 4th Floor, RM 402. The online registration portal was oversubscribed within 48 hours and 37 participants attended the training session, all of them from the University of Nairobi Academic staff.

The Office of the Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Research, Innovation and Enterprise) and the Graduate School conducted their second training this year for University of Nairobi PhD students titled “From Dissertation to Journal Publication” on publishing in peer-reviewed journals. This was done in Chandaria Auditorium on the 6th floor of the UoN Tower and was held on the 13th February 2020.