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Participants at the International Maternal Newborn Health Conference 2026 in Nairobi, where experts called on Kenya to scale up portable pregnancy scanning technology to stem a tide of preventable maternal deaths.
Health experts are sounding alarm over the deaths of 5,000 Kenyan mothers annually from pregnancy complications that a simple portable scan can detect and prevent.
The call came during a side event at the International Maternal Newborn Health Conference (IMNHC) 2026 in Nairobi, convened by PATH and the Centre for Public Health and Development (CPHD), where policymakers, regulators and health practitioners turned their fire on a health system that knows what works but refuses to scale it.
Most of the deaths are linked to late detection of high-risk pregnancies. Experts at the forum said Obstetric Point of Care Ultrasound (OPOCUS) offers a practical solution by enabling diagnosis at the primary healthcare level, where most Kenyan women seek care and where diagnostic tools remain scarce.
Dr Bernard Olayo of CPHD, whose organisation worked with the Ministry of Health to produce Kenya's National OPOCUS Training Package, was direct in his assessment. Continued dependence on pilot programmes, he noted, risks becoming a mechanism for delay dressed up as due diligence.
Dr Clive Ogallo echoed that concern, noting that the evidence base for OPOCUS already exists. The bottlenecks, he observed, are not scientific but structural, gaps in policy, financing and regulation that have kept the technology from moving beyond demonstration sites.
Dr Emily Njuguna of PATH argued the solution need not wait for a specialist workforce. With adequate training, she noted, nurses, midwives and primary healthcare workers can operate portable ultrasound devices accurately, extending diagnostic reach to facilities that have never had it.
Financing emerged as a central barrier. Dr Matiko Riro of Savannah Global Health Institute called for OPOCUS to be embedded in national health financing frameworks, with measures to reduce out-of-pocket costs for pregnant women and a defined role for both public and private sectors.
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The regulatory environment also drew scrutiny. Dr Pauline Wairimu of the Pharmacy and Poisons Board acknowledged that approval processes for emerging technologies, including those incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), must be accelerated, warning that slow regulatory pathways delay access to safe and effective devices.
Dr Janette Karimi of the Ministry of Health said the government is working to strengthen maternal health services, but conceded that faster policy alignment is needed to support wider deployment of point-of-care ultrasound, with particular attention to rural and underserved populations.
Panellists closed with a joint call for government and partners to institutionalise OPOCUS within primary healthcare, invest in workforce training, secure sustainable financing and fast-track regulatory approvals. They also proposed a national community of practice to coordinate scale-up and generate evidence.
Experts were clear that OPOCUS does not replace conventional ultrasound but plays a distinct role in early risk detection and timely referral.
The tools, they said, already exist. What remains is the political will to deploy them where they are most needed.
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