Pwani Oil Products has partnered with the Kenya Progressive Nurses Association (KPNA) to launch a national hand hygiene campaign aimed at mothers and caregivers, taking handwashing education into maternity and paediatric wards across Kenya.

The campaign, announced in Nairobi on July 20, 2026, targets 80 hospitals by the end of the year and has already reached 45 facilities, according to the companies. Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) is the latest facility enrolled. The current phase is expected to reach more than 1,200 mothers and children across the enrolled hospitals.

Under the programme, KPNA nurses conduct education sessions in wards where newborns and young children are most vulnerable to infection. Each activation engages about 300 mothers and caregivers, and participants receive hygiene care packs, according to the press release.

The initiative is framed against a wider public health challenge. WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme 2024 estimates cited in the statement show that more than four in ten Kenyans still lack basic handwashing facilities with soap and water at home. The World Health Organization also ranks diarrhoea—much of it preventable through handwashing with soap—as the second leading cause of death among children under five globally, the release said.

Pwani Oil Products Commercial Director Rajul Malde said the approach is designed around trusted points of care rather than mass advertising. “We are going where the trust already exists,” Malde said. “A mother in a maternity ward is not thinking about brands; she is thinking about keeping her baby safe. If a nurse shows her how to protect her child and the soap in her hand is affordable enough to keep buying, that is worth more to us than any billboard.”

KPNA Secretary General Triza Ireri said nurses regularly see the consequences of poor hand hygiene and argued that the ward setting is a high-impact point for prevention messaging. “Our nurses treat the consequences of poor hand hygiene every day, and most of it is preventable,” Ireri said. “Reaching a mother in the ward, at the moment her child's health is uppermost in her mind, is the most effective health education we can do.”

The hand hygiene push also intersects with competition in Kenya’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, where local manufacturers are seeking to retain and grow household spending amid pressure from rising living costs. Pwani Oil said its Detrex antibacterial soap range carries an endorsement from KPNA, and the company is using the hospital sessions to support product credibility in a category where consumers increasingly demand proof of effectiveness.

“Consumers in this category are not looking for the cheapest soap; they are looking for proof,” Malde said. “The question we get in every market is the same: does it actually work? That is a question best answered by health professionals, not by us.”

For KNH, the partnership is expected to extend infection prevention messaging beyond inpatient care. The hospital’s Infection Prevention and Control Unit is involved in the sessions, and the parties are discussing an annual activation at the facility from October, according to the statement.

KNH Acting Head of Infection Prevention and Control Unit Jemima Katama said the hospital sees the programme as reinforcing public health outcomes outside clinical settings. “Infection prevention cannot stop at the hospital gate,” Katama said. “What caregivers learn here helps protect their families and the wider community.”

Pwani Oil and KPNA said the next milestone is expanding from the 45 hospitals already reached toward the 80-hospital target by year-end, with continued activations in maternity and paediatric wards.