The Centre for Health Solutions – Kenya (CHS) started fifteen years ago as a small team supporting 29 health facilities in two districts of what was then Central Province: Thika and Gatundu. Today, that reach spans all 47 Kenyan counties and extends beyond the country’s borders.
CHS marked this milestone by releasing its CHS at 15 Impact Report at an event in Nairobi. The event brought together partners, county leaders, government officials, donors, health professionals, and beneficiaries whose lives have been shaped by the organisation’s work.
Fifteen Years, Measured in Lives
Dr. Paul Wekesa, CEO of CHS, opened the impact presentation by noting that after 15 years of work, the organisation wanted to talk about impact rather than outputs.
Since its founding in October 2010, CHS has been entrusted with over $279 million in public health financing, delivered through clean, certified financial audits throughout. Its work has provided HIV and TB health services to over 7 million people nationwide, with more than 10 million service touchpoints recorded when testing, prevention, and treatment services are counted separately.
Dr. Wekesa highlighted how CHS has acted locally to achieve global health targets:
- Mother-to-Child Transmission Elimination: In 2024, Siaya County where CHS has worked for around ten years became the first county in Kenya to surpass the global HIV elimination target for mother-to-child transmission, reaching 4.7% against a global target of 5%.
- HIV-Free Infants: Since 2010, 59,462 infants born to HIV-positive parents are HIV-free across the counties CHS has partnered with.
- Viral Suppression Rates: Since CHS began working in Siaya in 2016, when county HIV prevalence stood at 27%, viral suppression among clients on treatment has reached 96%, exceeding the 95% global target up from 68% at the time.
- Adolescent & Child Outcomes: Adolescent and child viral suppression, which has historically lagged behind adult outcomes, has risen from 56% and 48% respectively in 2016 to 95% today.
Fighting Tuberculosis Alongside the Ministry of Health
CHS has been a national TB response partner since 2013, working with the Ministry of Health’s National TB programme.” Over that period, Kenya achieved a 46% reduction in TB incidence and a 58% reduction in TB mortality from the 2015 baseline, contributing to the country meeting UN High-Level Meeting targets for TB control.
Accurate diagnosis has been central to these outcomes. CHS has piloted several diagnostic innovations, including Truenat, which enabled decentralized molecular testing at the grassroots level. Other TB milestones include:
- Reach & Treatment Success: 22.8 million Kenyans reached with molecular TB diagnostics, and 1.1 million individuals diagnosed with TB between 2013 and 2025, with treatment success rates above 89%.
- AI-Enabled Screening: CHS piloted AI-enabled digital chest X-ray technology for TB screening in 2022, among the first such real-world tests in the country; the government recently scaled up 80 machines nationally.
- Pediatric Innovations: CHS introduced stool-based Truenat testing for children under five, improving diagnosis in a population where TB is notoriously hard to detect.
- Siaya County Impact: In Siaya County specifically, TB mortality fell by 73%, exceeding the national average reduction.
Protecting Adolescents and Young People
CHS’s work with adolescents in Siaya, has focused on closing the gap between adult and youth health outcomes. Through the DREAMS initiative, running for over five years, CHS has reached 63,000 adolescent girls and young women vulnerable to HIV, contributing to:
- A decline in Siaya’s teenage pregnancy rate from 23.9% to 17%.
- A 55% reduction in new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women, from 1.3% at project start to 0.6% currently.
Building Systems, Not Just Delivering Services
Beyond direct service delivery, CHS highlighted its role in strengthening Kenya’s broader health systems:
- Digital Health Infrastructure: CHS began its digital transformation journey in 2018, digitising 245 health facilities through electronic medical records among the earliest such efforts nationally, enabling long-term monitoring of chronic patient outcomes.
- National Surveillance Platforms: CHS helped build TIBU, Kenya’s national TB surveillance platform, which now holds more than 1 million TB records and supports routine, real-time national monitoring, with ongoing enhancements to strengthen epidemic control.
- Artificial Intelligence Applications: Alongside AI-assisted chest X-rays, CHS is exploring predictive modelling and hotspot analytics for TB and is currently piloting an AI digital stethoscope through a randomized controlled trial expected to conclude by year-end.
- Integrated Primary Care: CHS piloted an integrated service delivery model in Kiambu from 2023, funded by TB Reach, testing how TB, lung health, and non-communicable disease services could be integrated within primary healthcare. Point-of-care molecular diagnostics increased TB notifications at pilot sites by 31%, while also surfacing other conditions such as asthma, COPD, and mental health needs.
- Local Capacity & Infrastructure: Sub-awards to healthcare workers, begun in 2013, have channelled significant funding directly to facility-level staff, with up to 80% of related funding going toward personnel costs over the years. Additionally, approximately $2 million was invested in infrastructure improvements that remain in place at supported health facilities today.
Looking Ahead: The CHS Strategic Plan (2026–2030)
The centre piece of the event’s second half was the launch of the CHS Strategic Plan (2026–2030), presented by Dr. Wekesa, who opened by noting that “the global health space has shifted completely.”
Dr. Wekesa framed the new strategy as a shift from CHS being primarily an “implementing partner” to becoming a “system partner,” working alongside government and communities on integrated, population-level health solutions rather than single-disease programmes alone.
The plan rests on five core pillars:
- Financial Resilience, Sustainability & Growth: Diversifying capital, growing unrestricted income, and scaling earned income.
- Health Impact, Programme Innovation & Expansion: Protecting HIV/TB gains while integrating into primary healthcare and Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
- Research, Innovation, Digital Health & Knowledge Leadership: Applied research, AI/digital health, and pilot-to-scale innovation.
- Strategic Positioning, Partnerships & Regional Influence: Foundations, corporate partnerships, and regional technical assistance.
- Future-Ready Organisation, People & Operational Excellence: Agile talent, governance, automation, and data security.
Stories Behind the Statistics
A documentary screened at the event brought CHS’s 15-year journey to life through the voices of health workers and community members — from mothers delivering HIV-free babies to adolescent girls supported through DREAMS.
Among those who shared her story was Naomi, a nurse and multidrug-resistant TB survivor who has worked in HIV and TB care since CHS began operating in her community. She credited CHS’s mentorship with helping healthcare workers overcome stigma and provide better care. After a year of treatment and surgery, she returned to work at the same clinic where she once feared losing her job. Her reminder that “the disease itself cannot kill you, but stigma” underscored the critical need for psychosocial support alongside medical care.
Endorsements from Government, Donors, and Global Partners
Key leaders across the health sector shared remarks commending CHS for its track record and partnership model:
- Principal Secretary for Public Health and Professional Standards (Ministry of Health): Congratulated CHS on 15 years of impact, noting that between 2015 and 2024 the partnership helped reduce TB incidence by 46% and TB deaths by 58% — helping make Kenya one of the first six nations globally to meet UN High-Level Meeting targets on TB. She called on CHS to push further into community-level prevention, citing continued gaps such as infection prevention and control.
- Jennifer (Representing CDC Kenya & U.S. Government): Traced the partnership back to 2011 across Kiambu, Murang’a, Nyeri, Nyandarua, Machakos, Kitui, Makueni, and Siaya counties. Highlighting the ongoing transition of HIV and TB programmes to county leadership four of Siaya’s six sub counties have already transitioned, with the remaining two expected within the month — she stated: “The true value of the past 15 years lies not only in the volume of services delivered, but in the systems and skills built to sustain those services.”
- Boston (Representing WHO & UN Agencies): Congratulated CHS for its contribution to Kenya’s progress on HIV, TB, malaria, maternal and child health, immunisation, and emergency preparedness, while cautioning that shrinking donor funding and emerging health threats remain ongoing challenges for the sector.
A Shared Milestone
Closing the event on behalf of the CHS Board, Beatrice Mwangi, reflected that “15 years of impact is not a slogan — it is thousands of ordinary working days in clinics and communities far from this room.” She expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Health, county governments, donors, and CHS staff for a collaboration that CDC leadership described as “a shining example of a local partner” in Kenya’s public health journey.
Behind every statistic shared at CHS@15 is a person — a mother, a child, a health worker, a community — whose life has been changed through access to care, information, and support. As CHS enters its next chapter, the task ahead is to keep turning evidence into action, innovation into solutions, and partnership into lasting impact.
Fifteen years is a remarkable achievement — but it is the foundation for what comes next, not the end of the story.
