Pharmacy and Poisons Board CEO Ahmed Mohammed, during an interview in Nairobi on August 17, 2026. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]
When a patient walks into a pharmacy and buys a packet of medicine, the intention is simple: To treat or manage a health condition.
But what happens when that medicine is fake, substandard, illegally imported, or has been poorly stored?
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) has adopted technology to help answer these questions in a move aimed at protecting patients from unsafe medicines.
As part of strengthening its existing regulatory controls, PPB is implementing authentication and track-and-trace technology to provide greater visibility of medicines across the supply chain; from manufacture or importation, through distribution, to the point of dispensing.
Under the system, regulated products will progressively carry traceability information that enables PPB to verify their identity and follow their movement through the legitimate supply chain. This will strengthen the Board's ability to detect diversion, identify suspicious products and rapidly trace affected batches where a safety or quality concern arises.
When a patient reports a problem, regulators can trace the medicine backwards through the supply chain and establish where it came from, allowing action to be taken, including a possible recall.