8,500+ professional visits and 250+ exhibitors from 30 countries converge at KICC as industry leaders push local manufacturing, smarter procurement and scalable digital health
NAIROBI, KENYA — September 2026 — Kenya’s ambition to strengthen its position as a healthcare manufacturing and investment hub in East Africa took centre stage at World Health Expo (WHX) Nairobi 2026, which brought together more than 8,500 professional visits and 250 exhibitors from 30 countries.
The 10th edition of WHX Nairobi, held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) from September 16–18, brought together manufacturers, healthcare providers, distributors, policymakers, investors and technology companies from across the region and beyond.
The event, held under the patronage of the Ministry of Health and with support from the Kenya Healthcare Federation, focused on some of the key issues shaping the region’s healthcare market, including local manufacturing, procurement, medical technology, digital health and cross-border supply chains.
Beyond Selling Medical Equipment
Opening the three-day exhibition, Dr Joe Lenai, Director for Primary Healthcare, Preventive and Promotive Health at the Ministry of Health, challenged manufacturers and medical equipment suppliers to take greater responsibility for the equipment they introduce into African markets.
“Africa must no longer be an equipment graveyard,” Lenai said, noting that expensive medical equipment can become unusable when spare parts, maintenance services and technical expertise are unavailable.
He called for manufacturers, aggregators and vendors to provide comprehensive service-level agreements covering maintenance, spare parts and local technical capacity.
“This will help build a more sustainable healthcare system and strengthen Africa’s capacity to maintain and support the technologies it invests in,” he said.
Lenai also highlighted Kenya’s recent healthcare reforms, including the Primary Care Act, Social Health Insurance Act, Digital Health Act and Facility Improvement Financing Act, as frameworks that could support investment, innovation, local manufacturing and public-private partnerships.
The reforms, he said, are helping create opportunities to strengthen Kenya’s role as a healthcare hub for East Africa.
Local Manufacturing Takes Centre Stage
The exhibition comes as healthcare stakeholders increasingly focus on reducing dependence on imported medical products while building stronger local and regional manufacturing capacity.
Exhibitors showcased products across medical devices, diagnostics and imaging, hospital consumables, hospital IT, orthopaedics, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, telemedicine and disease surveillance.
The presence of manufacturers and buyers from across Africa also created opportunities for regional procurement and supply-chain partnerships.
Tom Coleman, Portfolio Director–Healthcare at inD, the organiser of WHX, said the exhibition provided a platform for international healthcare companies to connect with distributors and decision-makers across East Africa.
“We had more than 250 international companies here in Nairobi this week for WHX, creating opportunities for investment, knowledge exchange and cross-border partnerships across the healthcare sector,” Coleman said.
He added that digital health attracted significant interest, particularly technologies designed to strengthen healthcare infrastructure and improve access to medicines and services in rural and underserved communities.
Digital Health Moves Towards Scale
For the Kenya Healthcare Federation, the next stage of East Africa’s digital-health development will depend on moving beyond isolated pilot projects towards solutions that can operate securely and at scale.
Dr Anne Musuva, CEO of the Kenya Healthcare Federation, said Kenya has several building blocks needed to support the expansion of digital health, including private-sector participation, technical expertise, public-health institutions and a statutory digital-health framework.
“WHX shows that East Africa’s healthcare sector is ready to move from fragmented pilots to investable, interoperable solutions that can operate securely at scale and benefit underserved populations,” Musuva said.
The focus on interoperability and scalability reflects growing demand for healthcare technologies that can work across institutions and borders rather than operate as standalone systems.
Regional and International Partnerships
WHX also provided a platform for strengthening international healthcare partnerships.
Witjaksono Adji, Indonesian Ambassador to Kenya, said Indonesian companies participating in the exhibition had engaged Kenyan counterparts on potential investment and cooperation opportunities.
“Events such as WHX provide an opportunity to strengthen partnerships, exchange expertise and explore possibilities for greater investment and cooperation between our two countries,” Adji said.
Official delegations from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and other East African markets also participated, facilitating discussions around procurement and regional supply chains.
The event’s international participation was complemented by support from FedEx, the official WHX Platinum Partner and Networking Lounge Partner.
Leon Bruwer, Managing Director, Sales, Sub-Saharan Africa at FedEx, said efficient logistics would be critical to Kenya’s ambitions to expand healthcare manufacturing.
“Kenya’s ambition to strengthen local manufacturing of medicines and medical devices depends on efficient supply chains and reliable cross-border movement of materials and finished products,” Bruwer said.
He said stronger logistics networks could help manufacturers connect with suppliers and regional and international markets.
Building a Regional Healthcare Hub
The WHX Nairobi exhibition is part of a wider portfolio of healthcare events in Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg, connecting global healthcare companies with distributors and buyers across African markets.
The Nairobi edition also complements continental healthcare gatherings such as Africa Health ExCon in Egypt and the Africa CDC Conference on Public Health in Africa, creating additional platforms for policy, procurement, investment and commercial partnerships.
As East Africa seeks to strengthen healthcare resilience and expand local production, stakeholders at WHX Nairobi highlighted three priorities: building local manufacturing capacity, improving procurement and supply chains, and scaling digital-health solutions.
The next edition of WHX Nairobi is scheduled for September 15–17, 2027, at KICC.
