Newborn Screening · Kenya
Newborn screening for sickle cell disease, anywhere in Kenya.
A heel prick at birth. A courier to an accredited lab. Results back to the ward in five days. Your hospital buys nothing.
The Problem
The test exists. It just never reaches the baby.
An HPLC machine costs tens of thousands of dollars, so they sit in a handful of city hospitals. A baby born in a sub-county dispensary has no way to reach one.
So sickle cell disease gets found the hard way, when a two-year-old arrives in crisis, after the damage is done.
- 14,000–0
- Babies are born with sickle cell disease in Kenya every year.
- 50–0%
- Die before they turn five when nobody catches it early.
- 3–0 months
- Is how long paper results take to travel back, if they arrive.
Who We Work With
Screening that runs on the system Kenya already has.
For Hospitals
Screen every baby you deliver.
You do the heel prick. We do the rest: cards, pickup, lab, report. Nothing to buy, nobody new to hire, and no change to how your ward already works.
For Counties & Partners
Cover a county, not a hospital.
One agreement puts screening in every facility you run. You see coverage, turnaround, and how many children were caught early, by facility, every month.
How It Works
One heel prick. Five days. A treatment plan instead of a crisis.
A nurse takes the sample within 48 hours of birth and scans its barcode into the app. It dries for three hours, gets sealed with a desiccant, and is scanned again when our courier collects it.
It is analysed at an ISO 15189-accredited lab and published straight back to your ward. Every step is tied to the sample, so nothing gets lost between the ward and the result.
ZuriHemo · Sample Journey
Live- BirthDay 0–1
- Heel PrickDay 1–3
- DBS CardRegistered
- CourierIn Transit
- Central LabHPLC Testing
- ResultsDelivered
- TreatmentInitiated
Day 1 of 5
Birth
The Product
The whole system fits on a nurse's phone.
Register the baby, follow the card, read the report, tell the family. Built for low bandwidth, because that is what a sub-county dispensary actually has.
New registration
Infant
Born
Facility
Sample ID
DBSZH-KKG-24817
Parent & CHP alerts
ZuriHemo: Baby of A. Wanjiku has been screened. Results are ready at Kakamega County GH.
Fri 09:12
A review has been booked for Fri 10:00 with the clinical officer. Please attend, treatment starts the same day.
Fri 09:12
Asante. We will be there.
Fri 09:31
Appointment confirmed
Community health promoter notified · Follow-up logged
Screening report
Baby of A. Wanjiku
Sickle cell disease
Positive · care started- Method
- HPLC
- Laboratory
- ISO 15189 partner
- Turnaround
- 4d 6h
- Clinic notified
- SMS to parent & CHP
- Review booked · Fri 10:00
Our Team
Built by people who have worked the bench and the ward.
A laboratory technologist, a public health officer, and a clinical officer, led by a founder who has run the tests this company is built around.
Laboratory science
The bench, the assay, the sign-off
Public health
County programmes and outreach
Clinical care
Wards, clinics, and follow-up
Sample logistics
Getting it there and the result back
When A Result Is Positive
A result nobody acts on is not a diagnosis.
Screening only counts if the child ends up in care. So the result does not stop at the ward. It triggers the appointment and the treatment behind it.
Same day
The ward is notified the moment the result is signed off, not weeks later by post.
Within hours
The parents and their community health promoter get an SMS, with a return appointment already booked.
At that visit
The child starts daily penicillin, is assessed for hydroxyurea, and the family gets counselling on what comes next.
What's Next
Sickle cell is the first condition, not the last.
The hard part is the road, not the assay. Once a sample can reach an accredited lab and a result can reach a ward, the same path carries any newborn screen.
Next on the panel: β-thalassemia, G6PD deficiency, congenital hypothyroidism, and spinal muscular atrophy.
Supported by
Start screening the babies you deliver.
Tell us where you work. We will come back with what it would cost and how soon we could start.