A comparative analysis of infection prevention and control guidelines across Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and healthcare-associated infections pose serious public health threats, particularly in Africa with limited health resources. Weak infection prevention and control (IPC) implementation worsens these challenges. To address this, Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) developed the IPC legal framework. This study compares Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania's IPC guidelines with the framework and evaluates their alignment.

This policy analysis compares the IPC guidelines of three countries and assesses their alignment against the attributes of the Africa CDC Legal IPC Framework. Scores were assigned based on the level of alignment with the attributes, aggregated into percentages, and compared across countries. This study was developed under the 2023-24 cohort 3, of Ducit Blue Foundation's pioneering and award-winning AMR One Health Pan-African Internship/Mentorship Program.

Facility-level IPC budgeting was included in Nigeria and Tanzania's guidelines but absent in Kenya. Training responsibilities differed, with Kenya and Tanzania authorizing national and regional bodies, while Nigeria assigned this solely to facility IPC teams. Overall alignment of the IPC guidelines with the Africa CDC Legal Framework was 69%. Tanzania had 76% alignment, while Kenya and Nigeria recorded 65% each. There were no significant variations in alignment between countries with the benchmark framework (X² = 3.75, p-value = .153).

This study represents the first attempt at a detailed policy analysis of IPC guidelines across Africa against a backdrop of the relevant regional instruments. The countries show good IPC alignment with the benchmark instrument, reflecting both regional commitment and local adaptation.