Project News

Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Hirotaka Ishihara visited KEMRI Headquarters on Friday, March 7, 2014. Dr. Mpoke (KEMRI's Director), Ms. Boit (KEMRI's Deputy Director), and 9 center directors and senior staff members from KEMRI welcomed Hon. Ishihara.

Dr. Mpoke presented the history and overview of KEMRI. He highlighted the longstanding assistance KEMRI has received from Japan, which dates back to 1979, especially in the area of communicable diseases research. Currently, a joint research project is carried out on yellow fever and Rift Valley fever (JICA-JST SATREPS project). Through these collaborations between Japan and KEMRI, many researchers have been trained in Japan, equipment and machineries were donated to the KEMRI research centers, and excellent researchers were trained through technical partnership programs in Kenya. Hon. Ishihara was happy to hear that many researchers who received training in Japan are currently working at KEMRI, and he was happy to visit this research institution that has longstanding partnerships with Japan.

Hon. Ishihara visited the Production Department at KEMRI and the P3 laboratory^[1] within the virology research block, which was built through Japanese grant assistance. Hon. Ishihara, KEMRI centre directors, and SATREPS project members discussed and exchanged ideas on topics such as current status of communicable diseases in Africa and the market scale of yellow fever point of care test kits, which is now under development through the SATREPS project. Hon. Ishihara seemed very interested in the activities at KEMRI and the SATREPS project.