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Abstract Off‐grid solar systems provide clean and affordable energy sources. Adoption of off‐grid Solar energy is becoming increasingly popular in Kenya as a source of renewable energy, with an estimated 10 million people using off‐grid solar power systems as of the end of year 2022. However, the rising off‐grid solar systems technology uptake comes with a growing amount of solar e‐waste, which can have harmful environmental and health effects if not managed properly. Current data on the exact amount of solar e‐waste being generated in Kenya is unavailable and this amount will continue to rise with the expiry of many of these off‐grid solar systems lifespans. This study through stakeholder's workshop and document review data collection and analysis approaches, established that Kenya just like many countries in the Global South has a robust general waste policy and regulation management framework. However, it lacks specific policies and regulations on off‐grid‐solar electronic waste management a challenge that many countries in the Global North have made considerate steps in addressing. In addition, there is a lack of awareness of the hazardous nature of off‐grid solar systems' e‐waste components to both consumers and institutions of governance. There is a lack of adequate infrastructure and sufficient systems for off‐grid solar e‐waste management in the country. Enforcement and implementation challenges of the existing general waste regulations due to limited resources and capacity and corruption culture are major impending factors. This calls for the development of effective policies and regulations to ensure sustainable off‐grid solar e‐waste management in Kenya against the backdrop of the rising uptake of off‐grid solar systems.

Off‐grid solar systems provide clean and affordable energy sources. Adoption of off‐grid Solar energy is becoming increasingly popular in Kenya as a source of renewable energy, with an estimated 10 million people using off‐grid solar power systems as of the end of year 2022. However, the rising off‐grid solar systems technology uptake comes with a growing amount of solar e‐waste, which can have harmful environmental and health effects if not managed properly. Current data on the exact amount of solar e‐waste being generated in Kenya is unavailable and this amount will continue to rise with the expiry of many of these off‐grid solar systems lifespans. This study through stakeholder's workshop and document review data collection and analysis approaches, established that Kenya just like many countries in the Global South has a robust general waste policy and regulation management framework. However, it lacks specific policies and regulations on off‐grid‐solar electronic waste management a challenge that many countries in the Global North have made considerate steps in addressing. In addition, there is a lack of awareness of the hazardous nature of off‐grid solar systems' e‐waste components to both consumers and institutions of governance. There is a lack of adequate infrastructure and sufficient systems for off‐grid solar e‐waste management in the country. Enforcement and implementation challenges of the existing general waste regulations due to limited resources and capacity and corruption culture are major impending factors. This calls for the development of effective policies and regulations to ensure sustainable off‐grid solar e‐waste management in Kenya against the backdrop of the rising uptake of off‐grid solar systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, public health measures like face masks, hand hygiene and maintaining social distancing have been implemented to delay and reduce local transmission of COVID-19. To date there is emerging evidence to provide effectiveness and compliance to intervention measures on COVID-19 due to rapid spread of the disease. We synthesized evidence of community interventions and innovative practices to mitigate COVID-19 as well as previous respiratory outbreak infections which may share some aspects of transmission dynamics with COVID-19. In the study, we systematically searched the literature on community interventions to mitigate COVID-19, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), H1N1 Influenza and MERS (middle east respiratory syndrome) epidemics in PubMed, Google Scholar, World Health Organization (WHO), MEDRXIV and Google from their inception until May 30, 2020 for up-to-date published and grey resources. We screened records, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias in duplicates. We rated the certainty of evidence according to Cochrane methods and the GRADE approach. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020183064). Of 41,138 papers found, 17 studies met the inclusion criteria in various settings in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). One of the papers from LMICs originated from Africa (Madagascar) with the rest from Asia 9 (China 5, Bangladesh 2, Thailand 2); South America 5 (Mexico 3, Peru 2) and Europe 2 (Serbia and Romania). Following five studies on the use of face masks, the risk of contracting SARS and Influenza was reduced OR 0.78 and 95% CI = 0.36–1.67. Equally, six studies on hand hygiene practices reported a reduced risk of contracting SARS and Influenza OR 0.95 and 95% CI = 0.83–1.08. Further two studies that looked at combined use of face masks and hand hygiene interventions showed the effectiveness in controlling the transmission of influenza OR 0.94 and 95% CI = 0.58–1.54. Nine studies on social distancing intervention demonstrated the importance of physical distance through closure of learning institutions on the transmission dynamics of disease. The evidence confirms the use of face masks, good hand hygiene and social distancing as community interventions are effective to control the spread of SARS and influenza in LMICs. However, the effectiveness of community interventions in LMICs should be informed by adherence of the mitigation measures and contextual factors taking into account the best practices. The study has shown gaps in adherence/compliance of the interventions, hence a need for robust intervention studies to better inform the evidence on compliance of the interventions. Nevertheless, this rapid review of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance on similar respiratory infectious diseases like Covid-19 in Kenya and similar LMIC context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic study of the photophysical and electrochemical properties of triscyclometalated homoleptic iridium(III) complexes based on 2-(1-naphthyl)pyridine (npy) ligands is presented. A systematic investigation of ligand substitution patterns showed an influence on the lifetime of the excited state, with slight changes in the absorption and emission spectral features. Specifically, the emission lifetime of a complex of an npy ligand substituted with a strongly electron-withdrawing trifluoromethyl group was longer than that of the corresponding complex with the electronically nonperturbed ligand (3.7 μs versus 1.5 μ s). Electronically complementary ligands and complexes with -orthogonal configurations showed slightly shorter excited state lifetimes compared with unsubstituted npy (1.4–3.0 μs). All complexes displayed reversible or quasireversible redox-couple processes, with the complex of the trifluoromethylated ligand showing the highest ground-state oxidation potential E1/2ox [Ir(III)/Ir(IV) = 0.95 V vs. SCE in CH2 Cl2 ]. This study showed that these complexes can be used as efficient photoredox catalysts, as demonstrated by their application in a regioselective methoxytrifluoromethylation in which the npy complexes showed equal or better performance compared with the archetypical photo-redox catalyst tris[2-phenylpyridinato]iridium(III). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For 50 years, comprehensive cancer treatment services were provided at one public hospital and a few private facilities in the capital city. In 2019, the services were decentralized to new national and regional centers to increase service accessibility using an integration model. This study aimed to analyze the status of the utilization of services at regional cancer centers. We analyzed data from the district health information system, focusing on patient demographics, visit type, cancer stage, and the type of treatment provided. For comparison, a trend analysis of new cancer cases recorded at the main national referral hospital between 2011-2021 was also conducted. We conducted a descriptive analysis of the variables of interest; the median was used to summarize continuous variables and percentages were used for categorical variables. A total of 29,321 patients visited the regional centers in 2021; the median age was 57 years (IQR 44-68) and 57.3% (16,815) were female. Visits to regional centres represented 38.8% (29,321/75,501) of all visits to public cancer centers; new visits accounted for 16.4% (4814/29321), and the rest were follow-up visits. Most patients (71%) had an advanced disease. The proportion of male patients with advanced-stage cancer was significantly higher than that of female patients (74% vs. 69%, P<0.001). Of the 15,275 patients who received treatment at regional centers, 69.1% (10,550) received chemotherapy.The increased patient visits show good service uptake at the regional centers, implying improved access. These findings can inform policies that will guide future expansion and service improvement. We recommend optimizing cancer service delivery at regional centers across the care continuum to improve patient outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Nyangasi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The health challenges in Africa underscore the importance of effectively investing in health systems. Unfortunately, there is no information on systems investments adequate for an effective functional health system. We aimed to address this by conducting a scoping review of existing evidence following the Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis and preregistered with the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/bvg4z). We included any empirical research describing interventions that contributed to the functionality of health systems in Africa or any low-income or lower-middle-income regions. We searched Web of Science, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and ERIC from their inception, and hand-searched other relevant sources. We summarized data using a narrative approach involving thematic syntheses and descriptive statistics. We identified 554 unique reports describing 575 interventions, of which 495 reported evidence of effectiveness. Most interventions were undertaken in Africa (80.9%), covered multiple elements of health systems (median: 3), and focused on service delivery (77.4%) and health workforce (65.6%). Effective interventions contributed to improving single (35.6%) or multiple (64.4%) capacities of health systems: access to essential services (75.6%), quality of care (70.5%), demand for essential services (38.6%), or health systems resilience (13.5%). For example, telemedicine models which covered software (technologies) and hardware (health workers) elements were used as a strategy to address issues of access to essential services. We inventoried these effective interventions for improving health systems functionality in Africa. Further analyses could deepen understanding of how such interventions differ in their incorporation of evidence for potential scale across African countries., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2022 Karamagi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Objectives: Researchers at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) carried out knowledge translation (KT) activities to support policy-makers as the Kenyan Government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. We assessed the usefulness of these activities to identify the facilitators and barriers to KT and suggest actions that facilitate KT in similar settings., Design: The study adopted a qualitative interview study design., Setting and Participants: Researchers at KWTRP in Kenya who were involved in KT activities during the COVID-19 pandemic (n=6) were selected to participate in key informant interviews to describe their experience. In addition, the policy-makers with whom these researchers engaged were invited to participate (n=11). Data were collected from March 2021 to August 2021., Analysis: A thematic analysis approach was adopted using a predetermined framework to develop a coding structure consisting of the core thematic areas. Any other theme that emerged in the coding process was included., Results: Both groups reported that the KT activities increased evidence availability and accessibility, enhanced policy-makers' motivation to use evidence, improved capacity to use research evidence and strengthened relationships. Policy-makers shared that a key facilitator of this was the knowledge products shared and the regular interaction with researchers. Both groups mentioned that a key barrier was the timeliness of generating evidence, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. They felt it was important to institutionalise KT to improve readiness to respond to public health emergencies., Conclusion: This study provides a real-world example of the use of KT during a public health crisis. It further highlights the need to institutionalise KT in research and policy institutions in African countries to respond readily to public health emergencies., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)