Pwani Oil, Nurses take Handwashing Lessons to Hospital Wards
Pwani Oil Products has partnered with the Kenya Progressive Nurses Association (KPNA) to launch a national hand hygiene campaign targeting mothers and caregivers, taking handwashing education directly into hospital wards across the country.
The campaign targets 80 hospitals by the end of the year and has already reached 45, with Kenyatta National Hospital being the latest facility enrolled. The current phase is expected to reach more than 1,200 mothers and children across enrolled facilities.
KPNA nurses conduct the education sessions in maternity and paediatric wards, where newborns and young children are most vulnerable to infection and where hygiene lessons reach mothers at the moment they matter most. Each activation engages about 300 mothers and caregivers, who also receive hygiene care packs.
The campaign comes against a stark public health backdrop. According to 2024 estimates from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, more than four in ten Kenyans still lack basic handwashing facilities with soap and water at home. The World Health Organization ranks diarrhoea, much of it preventable through handwashing with soap, as the second leading cause of death among children under five globally.
"We are going where the trust already exists," said Rajul Malde, Commercial Director at Pwani Oil Products. "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."
"Our nurses treat the consequences of poor hand hygiene every day, and most of it is preventable," said Triza Ireri, Secretary General at the Kenya Progressive Nurses Association. "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 programme also reflects growing competition in Kenya's fast-moving consumer goods sector, where local manufacturers are targeting households that want premium hygiene products but have been squeezed out by rising living costs. The Detrex range, Pwani Oil's antibacterial soap brand, carries an endorsement from KPNA, and the firm is positioning the hospital programme as evidence of clinical credibility rather than conventional advertising.
"Consumers in this category are not looking for the cheapest soap; they are looking for proof," said Rajul Malde. "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 extends infection prevention messaging beyond its wards. The hospital's Infection Prevention and Control Unit is involved in the sessions, and the two parties are discussing an annual activation at the facility from October.
"Infection prevention cannot stop at the hospital gate,” said Jemima Katama, Ag. Head of Infection, Prevention and Control Unit at Kenyatta National Hospital. “What caregivers learn here helps protect their families and the wider community.