PharmAccess mobilizes public and private resources for the benefit of doctors and patients through clinical standards and quality improvements, loans for healthcare providers, health insurance, mHealth innovations and operational research.
Nearly 40% of suspected malaria cases in Kenya's private sector go unreported. Antimalarial drugs are often prescribed without testing. These gaps mean patients get incorrect care and health authorities lack a complete picture of where malaria is spreading, making targeted resource allocation nearly impossible.
In Kisumu County, a collaborative effort is changing that story. By combining artificial intelligence, mobile technology, and private sector front line workers, a new approach is transforming disease surveillance and improving patient outcomes.
Malaria remains one of the leading causes of illness and death across sub-Saharan Africa. Patients are often treated based on symptoms alone rather than diagnostic confirmation. In the private health sector – chemists and private providers—case data typically never reaches national reporting systems, creating critical blind spots in disease surveillance.
Without diagnostic data, health systems can’t see where malaria is actually concentrating. Resources get wasted. Cases multiply unseen.
In May 2024, Kisumu County Department of Health partnered with PharmAccess and Audere to launch a digital malaria case management project. This partnership is supported by European and UK funding (DIDIDA). The initiative introduced HealthPulse, an AI-powered app providing real-time decision support for malaria testing and treatment.
Working through a hub-and-spoke model, trained private health providers collaborate with community health promoters and chemists. This network ensures patients with fever receive proper testing before treatment, are referred to clinics when necessary, and that every test result feeds into a shared pool of real-time health data.
When a patient visits a participating provider, HealthPulse guides them through the testing process. The app collects essential patient information, then provides step-by-step instructions for up to ten WHO-approved malaria rapid diagnostic tests. A built-in timer and a dedicated coding system ensure accuracy and prevent misuse.
Once complete, the provider photographs the malaria test result. The app’s AI interprets the image instantly, reporting positive, negative, or invalid results and recommending next steps: treatment with approved antimalarial drugs or referral to a health facility.
All data flows securely to a location-based, real-time dashboard, giving Kisumu County unprecedented visibility into malaria trends. Providers receive digital incentives through mobile money and data bundles, rewarding sound malaria management practices:
Built for low-resource and remote settings, HealthPulse includes:
Supervisors can monitor providers in near real time. Each test receives a unique identifier, preventing misuse and maintaining data quality. The app also tracks medicine prescription when tests are negative – data that informs broader fever management policies and referrals.
All data feeds into an interactive PowerBI dashboard created by PharmAccess. County health officials access health intelligence data such as test positivity rates, age, pregnancy and gender distribution, and testing trends across time and geography. The dashboard monitors provider performance and data quality, enabling quick identification of gaps and targeted training.
By June 2025, just ten months into the pilot, the results speak for themselves:
For patients, this means faster and more accurate diagnosis, higher quality of care. For the health system, it means better surveillance, more efficient resource use, and fewer missed cases. For the providers it means increased quality, credibility, patient flow and remuneration. This approach reduces costs of comprehensive malaria care with minimal 25%.
Watch our video series to see the impact in action
The pilot successfully demonstrated a proven concept ready for expansion. The project navigated challenges, including withdrawal of general USAID funding for malaria programs. Despite these constraints, the ConnDx (Connected Diagnostics) model has proven that locally owned and co-created AI-enabled tools can transform disease surveillance and strengthen community-level providers.
The approach holds promise beyond malaria. Expanding this model to other febrile diseases could strengthen epidemic preparedness through accurate, real-time data collection from the first point of patient contact. The development of rapid tests for schistosomiasis, brucellosis and other febrile diseases is underway through DIDIDA.
The Kisumu pilot demonstrates a clear principle: when AI, mobile technology, and private sector front line workers work together, they bridge critical data gaps and improve outcomes. By supporting those on the front lines and ensuring every test contributes to the bigger picture, Kenya is showing what the future of public health could look like – smarter, faster, and driven by data that matters.
