If you grew up in Kenya in the late 1990s and early 2000s, chances are you remember the unforgettable HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns fronted by former Information Minister Raphael Tuju.
The television adverts were impossible to ignore.
Graphic images of advanced AIDS, genital warts, sexually transmitted infections, peeling skin, and emaciated bodies filled television screens in an attempt to shock Kenyans into changing their behaviour. Fear was the message. It was the strategy.
Years later, public health experts still debate whether such campaigns changed behaviour or simply fuelled stigma.
More than two decades later, Kenya appears to have changed the diseases it is fighting—but not necessarily the way it communicates them.
From HIV/AIDS to Ebola, COVID-19 and now the threat of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus, Kenya's public health messaging has repeatedly leaned on fear, secrecy and crisis management rather than transparency, community engagement and trust.
Ironically, global experience has shown that fear alone rarely wins against epidemics.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa became a turning point in global risk communication.
Early messages describing Ebola as an "incurable killer" created widespread panic, mistrust and resistance. Communities hid patients, resisted health workers and, in some cases, attacked response teams.
Health authorities eventually abandoned the top-down communication model and adopted a community-first approach.
Religious leaders, village elders, Ebola survivors and local volunteers became trusted messengers.
Authorities first listened to communities before asking them to change behaviour.
The lesson was simple: people are more likely to cooperate when they understand the risk and trust those communicating it.
Yet Kenya appears to have struggled to internalise that lesson.
COVID-19: When fear became the message
On March 12, 2020, Kenya confirmed its first COVID-19 case.
For months, Kenyans gathered around television screens every afternoon as then Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe and Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Mercy Mwangangi delivered daily updates from Afya House.
Journalists often spent hours waiting outside the ministry under the scorching sun before the briefings finally began.
Some of the messaging became iconic.
"Anybody can get it... you can get it... I can get it," Kagwe warned repeatedly.
On another occasion, he cautioned Kenyans:
"If you continue behaving normally, this disease will treat you abnormally."
The remarks reflected the urgency of the moment and likely helped drive compliance with public health measures.
But they also reinforced a communication style centred on fear and punishment rather than dialogue.
Caught past curfew hours , you will find yourself in the cells or an isolation centre . GUILTY!
Experts argue that while emergency situations require decisive messaging, sustainable public health responses depend on building public trust not merely demanding obedience.
Fast forward to 2026
As neighbouring countries battle the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus, Kenya once again finds itself preparing for a potential outbreak.
But instead of leading the conversation, government communication has largely been overtaken by social media speculation.
Many Kenyans first learnt that the United States had committed USD 13.5 million to strengthen Kenya's Ebola preparedness, including support linked to the construction of a 50-bed quarantine facility at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, not through structured government public engagement but through online posts and political debate.
Almost immediately, rumours spread that the facility was being built to host Americans exposed to Ebola rather than to strengthen Kenya's outbreak preparedness.
The backlash was swift.
Residents took to the streets. Demonstrations turned violent. Two people died and several people were injured as protesters attempted to stop construction of what many believed would become an "American Ebola isolation centre."
Court cases followed, eventually halting construction. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, accompanied by Principal Secretaries Mary Muthoni and Ouma Oluga, later appeared before court seeking leniency after being found to have acted contrary to court orders.
The controversy became less about Ebola itself and more about a breakdown in public trust.
Had communities been engaged earlier, experts ask, would events have unfolded differently?
Yes, Kenya needs modern isolation facilities.
But critics argue that the government lost control of the narrative from the very beginning. Instead of first explaining why Kenya needed high-containment treatment centres to protect its own population, public attention became fixated on reports that the Laikipia facility would receive Americans exposed to Ebola. By the time officials attempted to clarify the issue, fear had already taken hold.
Even Parliament raised concerns.
As Kenya prepares to co-host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), lawmakers questioned the country's readiness to respond to regional disease threats.
Members of the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Sports and Culture demanded stronger coordination, funding and strict border health measures. Matungulu MP Stephen Mule pressed officials on Ebola screening protocols, with the Local Organising Committee stating that the Ministry of Health was developing public health systems at all points of entry.
But beyond border screening lies a more difficult question:
How does Kenya communicate risk before fear fills the information vacuum?
The contrast with neighbouring Tanzania remains striking.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the late Tanzanian President John Magufuli repeatedly dismissed scientific guidance and made statements that drew international criticism.
He urged citizens to rely on prayer rather than vaccines, questioned laboratory testing after claiming that samples from a goat and a pawpaw had tested positive, promoted steam inhalation as protection against COVID-19, and declared Tanzania free of the virus while discouraging publication of official case numbers.
Public health experts widely criticised the remarks, warning that misinformation from political leaders can undermine trust, delay disease detection and weaken outbreak response.
While Kenya never adopted such extreme messaging, experts say its own communication failures have often been characterised by delayed public engagement, inadequate explanation of interventions and reactive crisis management.
For Peterson Wachira, Chairperson of the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers and a frontline clinician who served under the African Union Support to Ebola Outbreak in West Africa (ASEOWA) mission in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the lessons from West Africa remain painfully relevant.
"The good thing we could do is look at Laikipia," he says.
"There are people who have been demonstrating because of lack of preparedness from the government. Risk communication and community engagement are one of the pillars of outbreak preparedness. We train healthcare workers, strengthen laboratories and laboratory networks, but we must also prepare communities."
According to Wachira, preparedness is not only about ambulances, laboratories and isolation wards.
"There is training of healthcare workers, laboratory capacity, surveillance and response, but there is also risk communication and community engagement. All these pillars are equally important."
He says authorities failed to understand what communities were actually afraid of.
"There is something we call social listening. You first listen to the population and understand their fears. Once you understand those fears, you send experts in risk communication and community engagement to replace that fear with facts because fear brings stigma."
According to Wachira, the protests in Laikipia were never simply about the isolation facility.
"These people were acting out of fear and the stigma that comes with Ebola. That fear eventually spilled over to the quarantine facility itself."
He believes government responded with force instead of dialogue.
"The government should simply not have sent the police. People were expressing fear and then you send police officers to battle them. Instead, government should have sent experts in risk communication and community engagement to sit with the people, answer their questions and give them facts."
Dr Moses Masika, from the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Nairobi, believes the communication gap extends beyond government.
"I think we have not done very well not only the government. Most of us as experts have not done very well within this space," he said.
He argues that successful public health interventions begin long before construction starts or policies are announced.
"Before you make any move, if time allows, you should move together with the public. That means explaining what you are doing, why you are doing it, answering questions sufficiently and allowing people to understand."
He says communication should not stop because a few people remain unconvinced.
"Some people may never be convinced, but if the majority understand and support what you are doing, then you can confidently move forward knowing the intervention has public backing."
Ignoring communities, however, carries its own risks.
"If you do it by force or ignore public sentiment, that itself becomes a public health risk. Communities may attack isolation facilities, refuse treatment or stay away altogether. Then the intervention becomes ineffective."
Masika believes Kenya still has significant work to do.
"We have a lot more to communicate. We have a big gap. People need to understand why we need isolation centres, how they work and how they benefit both patients and the surrounding community."
The scenes witnessed in Laikipia suggest that disease outbreaks are fought on two fronts.
One is against the virus itself.
The other is against fear.
History has repeatedly shown that when governments fail to communicate early, honestly and consistently, rumours spread faster than pathogens, mistrust becomes contagious and communities become harder to protect.