Nairobi, June 28 -- Walk into almost any pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Nairobi's Industrial Area and you are likely to find the same activity: blister-packing machines producing paracetamol tablets.

According to the recently released Kenya Health Products and Technologies Local Manufacturing Strategy (2026-2030), about 15 Kenyan manufacturers are producing essentially the same pain reliever, all competing in a market already flooded with about 200 imported brands containing the same active ingredient.

Meanwhile, in the same public hospitals these manufacturers supply, nurses are rationing injectable ampoules or managing without eye drops because no one is producing sufficient quantities locally.

The strategy attributes this mis...