Nairobi, April 26 -- When a patient walks into a health centre in Bomet or a dispensary in Lamu, they are entering a county facility. The nurse who takes their temperature is a county employee. The records system that logs their symptoms runs on county infrastructure. The data generated belongs to the county health service, a function the 2010 Constitution explicitly devolved from the national government.

So when the national government signed an agreement in Washington committing "Kenya's health data" to American authorities, a constitutional question should have been front and centre: whose data is this to give?

In my previous articles on the Kenya-US health cooperation framework, I explored what this deal means for ordinary families ...