Public Health Act

Provides the short title: "Public Health Act."

Mentions the phrase "the Director-General for health" in the interpretation section.

Creates a Medical Department under the control of the Director-General for health and assigns it functions to protect and promote public health, advise local authorities, carry out research, publish reports, and obtain and publish information periodically.

The Cabinet Secretary may, on the advice of the board or the Medical Department, order inquiries into public health matters anywhere.

When the Cabinet Secretary directs an inquiry, the person so directed must be given free access to relevant books, plans, maps, documents and other things, has powers like magistrates over witnesses and production of documents, and may enter and inspect buildings or places necessary for the inquiry.

Every health authority must take all lawful, necessary and, under its special circumstances, reasonably practicable measures to prevent or deal with outbreaks or prevalence of infectious, communicable or preventable diseases, safeguard and promote public health, and exercise powers and duties conferred by this Act or any other law.

If a municipal council fails to exercise its powers or perform duties endangering public health, the Cabinet Secretary (on the board's recommendation and after inquiry) may order the council to perform the duty; if not done, the Cabinet Secretary may appoint someone to perform it and order the council to pay the expenses and reasonable remuneration; the appointed person has the council's powers except levying rates; the Cabinet Secretary may change the appointee.

The Cabinet Secretary responsible for Local Government must obtain agreement from the Cabinet Secretary responsible for Health before approving any municipal council by-law affecting public health.

This Act's provisions are additional to, and not substitutions for, provisions of other Acts unless those other Acts conflict or are inconsistent with this Act; where there is a conflict, this Act prevails.

Establishes a Central Board of Health seated at Nairobi composed of the Director-General for health (who shall be Chairperson), a sanitary engineer (or appointee), a secretary, and up to six other appointed members (three of whom shall be medical practitioners).

The names of all members appointed to the board must be notified forthwith in the Gazette.

The Cabinet Secretary must promptly fill board vacancies; the board must continue to exercise its powers while at least five members remain, including the Director-General for health.

The Cabinet Secretary may appoint another person to replace a board member who is prevented from acting until the member returns or can resume duties.

The Cabinet Secretary may make rules about convening and holding board meetings, quorum, procedure, members' allowances and when a member must vacate membership.

The board may appoint committees and may delegate its powers to any such committee.

A district health management board shall be established in each district to oversee Government health institutions; the Cabinet Secretary may make rules on the boards' composition, meetings, procedure, allowances and circumstances for vacating membership.

The board must advise the Cabinet Secretary on all matters affecting public health, especially those in subsection (2) of section 10.

Section 9 establishes appointment of public health officers and sets duties, qualifications and powers for various officials including municipal councils, the Cabinet Secretary and the Director-General for health.

The Part applies, unless otherwise expressed, to the listed notifiable infectious diseases; other infectious diseases may be declared notifiable and notices may limit which provisions apply or the area to which they apply.

Specified household members and medical practitioners must notify the nearest medical officer of health when a patient is suffering from a notifiable infectious disease; medical practitioners must also provide certificates and inform household/attendants; failure to notify is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding eighty shillings, with a court-based exception where reasonable cause is shown.

The health authority must pay a fee of four shillings to each non‑Government medical practitioner for each certificate sent under the Act when the case is in the practitioner's private practice.

A notice or certificate to a medical officer of health may be delivered to the officer, left at his office or residence, or sent by post addressed to his office or residence.

A medical officer of health may at any time enter and inspect premises believed to contain persons with infectious disease and may medically examine persons in those premises to determine infection.

Medical officers must give written notices requiring owners or occupiers to cleanse and disinfect premises and articles when needed; owners/occupiers must comply or face fines and the authority may carry out the work and recover expenses, and may act where the owner is unable due to poverty.

Any health authority may order destruction of buildings, bedding, clothing or other articles exposed to infectious disease and may pay compensation.

Any health authority may provide facilities and apparatus for disinfecting infected bedding, clothing or other articles and may have such articles disinfected free of charge; such a direction authorizes certain officers to destroy them.

Health authorities may provide and maintain carriages suitable for conveying persons with infectious diseases, and may pay the expenses of conveying such persons to a hospital or other place of destination.

If a medical officer of health considers a certified infectious person is not being properly accommodated or treated, the officer may order their removal to a suitable hospital or temporary place and detain them until a medical officer or authorized practitioner is satisfied they are free from infection or can be discharged.

A person exposed to a notifiable infectious disease may be removed to isolation by magistrate order on a medical officer's certificate; the local authority must pay the cost, and the person may be detained until the medical officer considers them free or the magistrate cancels the order.

Persons suffering from an infectious disease must not wilfully expose themselves without proper precautions or enter public conveyances without notifying the owner, conductor or driver.

Owners or drivers of vehicles must immediately disinfect a conveyance after it has carried a person with an infectious disease; failure is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding forty thousand shillings; owners/drivers are not required to carry such persons until paid to cover losses or expenses.

It is an offence to let for hire a dwelling or premises where a person has been suffering from an infectious disease unless the premises and articles have been efficiently disinfected to the satisfaction of a medical officer of health (certificate required); penalty up to eighty thousand shillings.

A person who lets a house that was lately infected must give true information.

Municipal council has powers to provide hospitals by building them, contracting for use, or entering agreements for reception of sick inhabitants on agreed payment.

Expenses a municipal council incurs maintaining a non-pauper patient in hospital are a debt of that patient and may be recovered from the patient after discharge or from the patient's estate if the patient dies.

Grants power to provide temporary supply of medicine.

The Act's provisions relating to formidable epidemic, endemic or infectious disease apply to smallpox, plague, Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, human trypanosomiasis, and any disease the Cabinet Secretary may declare by order to be a formidable epidemic disease for the purpose of the Act.

Rules for prevention of disease

The health authority in any area where rules made under section 36 are in force must take and provide all acts and things necessary to mitigate disease and aid or execute those rules; the health authority or the medical officer of health may direct prosecutions for wilful violation or neglect of such rules.

The Director-General for Health and his officers have the power to enter any premises or vessels to execute or oversee execution of rules made under section 36.

Section 39 is repealed.

Anyone who becomes aware of unusual sickness or deaths among animals susceptible to plague must immediately report it to the medical officer of health.

Medical officers of health must immediately report by telegraph or other expeditious means to the Director-General for health particulars of every notification of a case or suspected case of any formidable epidemic disease, or of unusual sickness or mortality in animals made under section 40.

The Director-General for health may require owners or persons in charge to provide land, buildings, or materials urgently needed during a threatened or existing epidemic, subject to reasonable payment; failure without reasonable cause is an offence.

Persons must not cause or allow nuisances on land they own, occupy, or are in charge of that are injurious or dangerous to health.

Every local authority must take lawful, necessary and reasonably practicable measures to keep its district clean and sanitary, prevent or remedy nuisances dangerous to health, and take legal action against those responsible.

Every health authority must take all lawful, necessary and reasonably practicable measures to prevent or remedy conditions dangerous to health from unhealthy dwellings or premises, and must take proceedings against persons responsible for such conditions.

Section 118 lists kinds of things and conditions that constitute a nuisance (e.g. vessels, dwellings, streets, water sources, waste discharges, animals, accumulations, factories, chimneys, cemeteries, acts) and defines the "author of a nuisance."

When a nuisance arises from a structural defect or the dwelling is unoccupied, a notice must be served on the owner.

If a person served with a notice to remove a nuisance does not comply, the medical officer of health must bring a complaint to a magistrate; the magistrate and court may summon the person, order removal or preventive works, impose fines (up to two hundred shillings), direct payment of costs, issue closing orders making dwellings uninhabitable, and take further proceedings if nuisance recurs.

People must obey orders from the medical officer of health to remove nuisances; failure or wilful contravention can make a person guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to one thousand five hundred shillings for each day the default or contravention continues. The medical officer of health may enter premises, remove the nuisance and recover expenses.

If the court cannot find the person responsible for a nuisance or the owner or occupier of the premises, the court may order the health authority to execute the directed works, and the cost of executing them shall be charged on the property where the nuisance exists.

Specified health officials may enter and inspect premises for nuisances (at all reasonable times), may open ground and test drains if necessary, and the authority must restore premises at its own expense if no nuisance is found.

Court may order demolition of a dwelling proved to be a nuisance; occupier must be given notice to move; failure to comply or to demolish is an offence; health authority may demolish and recover costs; no compensation payable and rent ceases from demolition order date.

The department must collect, investigate, consider and publish facts about overcrowding or inadequate housing in Kenya's districts.

Enables rules for inspection of land, dwellings, buildings, factories and trade premises and for keeping them clean and free from nuisance to protect the health of inmates and the public.

Permits local by-laws addressing building construction, materials, spacing, lighting and ventilation, room dimensions, building heights and chimneys, prohibition or restriction of temporary or movable buildings and tents, escape provisions for fire, certificates of fitness before occupation, compelling employers to provide housing, requiring owners to repair or demolish unsafe buildings, and various sanitation and drainage matters; also provides for notices, deposit of plans, inspections, testing, sample-taking and reasonable charges and fees for those actions.

A local authority may relax or dispense with its building by-laws in particular cases it considers unreasonable, but must give notice and obtain the Cabinet Secretary's consent which cannot be given until one month after notice and after considering any objections.

Local authorities must pass deposited building plans unless the plans are defective or would contravene building by-laws; they must reject defective or non-conforming plans, must specify defects in rejection notices, and may retain copies, charge reasonable fees for examination, and extend prescribed periods.

Local authorities may require owners to remove or alter works that contravene building by-laws and may enforce compliance; landowners must provide owner details on written request and face fines for non-compliance.

The provision states that, for the purposes of this Act, 'venereal diseases' are to be taken to include syphilis, gonorrhoea, gonorrhoeal ophthalmia, soft chancre, venereal warts and venereal granuloma.

People who know or reasonably believe they have a venereal disease must immediately see and follow treatment from a medical practitioner or attend a hospital; those under treatment must continue until cured or non‑communicable; failure is an offence.

Medical practitioners must tell the patient that the disease is infectious and inform them of the penalties for infecting others.

Parents or guardians who know or reasonably believe their child has a venereal disease must have the child treated by a medical practitioner until the child is cured or no longer communicable; failure to do so is an offence punishable by a fine (up to 1,000 shillings), imprisonment (up to three months), or both.

Persons suffering from a communicable venereal disease must not accept or continue employment in roles involving care of children or handling food/food utensils for others; employers must not employ such persons in those roles. Both subsections allow a defence if the person (or employer) proves they did not know, suspect, and had no reasonable means of knowing of the disease.

Medical officers who know or have reason to believe a person has a communicable venereal disease and is not properly under treatment must notify that person of the Act's treatment requirements and report noncompliance to a magistrate; the magistrate may inquire, make orders (including medical certificates, examinations, required treatment attendance, or detention in a special hospital), and failure to comply or escape is an offence.

Every person who wilfully or by culpable negligence infects another with a venereal disease commits an offence and is liable to a fine up to four thousand shillings or imprisonment up to six months, or both.

Magistrates may order that prisoners suffering from a communicable venereal disease be removed to and detained in a special hospital or accommodation; detained persons who escape commit an offence.

The Cabinet Secretary may order medical examination of a person believed to have venereal disease; persons who refuse or obstruct compliance commit an offence.

If a female ordered to be medically examined requests a woman medical practitioner and one is reasonably available, the examination must be carried out by a woman medical practitioner.

People detained in hospital under this Part have the right, at their own expense, to arrange an examination by any medical practitioner; the magistrate may order further examination. No one may be detained who is not, or no longer, suffering from a communicable venereal disease.

Proceedings under this Part must be secret and conducted in camera; publishing or divulging identities or related proceedings is an offence.

No person may publish advertisements or statements promoting cures for venereal or sexual organ diseases or sexual impotence; such publications are an offence, but publications by the Medical Department, municipal councils, public hospitals, other public bodies acting in their lawful duties, persons authorised by the Cabinet Secretary, or works published in good faith for medical science are exempt.

Provides definitions for "master", "oversea vessel", and "port health officer" for this Part.

The Act's provisions about vessels apply to every vessel within territorial waters, except where the Act expressly states otherwise; the Cabinet Secretary may, subject to prescribed conditions or limitations, exempt specified vessels (Kenyan or foreign warships, or vessels solely in the coasting trade between Kenyan ports).

Masters, persons on board, and people from shore or other vessels must not communicate with a vessel except by signal until pratique is granted; port officers, pilots or other duly authorized officers may board or come alongside. (Section 58(1))

The master of a vessel must report to the port health officer any death on the vessel (during the voyage just completed or while in port) and the cause of death.

A port health officer may board and inspect vessels, examine persons and require answers to determine infection; any person who refuses, obstructs, gives false information or fails to give required information commits an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand shillings.

When certain illnesses, deaths from notifiable infectious diseases, or suspected epidemic-related animal sickness occur on a vessel or in the harbour area, the port health officer must promptly inform the local medical officer of health and report measures taken or intended.

The port health officer may grant, continue, withhold or withdraw pratique and quarantine vessels when infectious disease is suspected, and must immediately report such actions and reasons to the Director-General for health and the nearest medical officer of health.

Section 63. Declaration of infected places, ports of entry, etc.

Masters of vessels arriving from proclaimed places must take prescribed precautionary measures for vessel, crew, passengers and cargo while at that place and during voyage to Kenya.

The Cabinet Secretary may require the master of a quarantined vessel to move it, and the master must remove it at his own risk and expense to another port or place within territorial waters.

If the master of a vessel refuses quarantine or removal, he must immediately inform the officer, hoist the quarantine signal, remove the vessel from nearby wharves or other vessels, and depart the port promptly after notifying the next intended port; such a vessel may, before leaving, take on board coal, water, provisions or stores subject to prescribed precautions.

A port health officer may remove a person sick with an infectious or other disease from a vessel to a hospital or place of isolation for treatment; the master or agent must bear reasonable expenses, which the Government may recover from them.

Port health officers may require persons exposed to infection to remain on board, land and report for medical surveillance, or be removed to isolation; port health officers must notify district medical officers; persons must comply or face a fine and/or imprisonment.

If a person dies on board a vessel at a Kenyan port or place, the vessel's master must ensure the body is properly buried.

Clearance papers for a vessel may be withheld on request of the port health officer when there are reasonable grounds to believe the master committed an offence or refused to pay charges; such withholding must not exceed thirty-six hours (Sundays and public holidays excepted) unless proceedings started before expiry.

Grants powers to regulate or prohibit entry at Kenya's inland borders, to impose medical and quarantine requirements, to apply provisions to aircraft; and makes contravention of orders under subsection (1) an offence punishable by a fine up to one thousand shillings or imprisonment up to three months or both.

The Cabinet Secretary may enter into agreements with foreign governments for reciprocal notification of outbreaks.

Port health officers have prescribed powers and duties; masters of arriving vessels must furnish a health declaration; port health or duly authorized officers may require oath verification and administer oaths.

Orders or rules under this Part may provide exemptions, define the disease to which provisions apply and may impose duties on specified actors; contravening these provisions (or orders/rules) is an offence punishable by fines or imprisonment, with higher penalties where the master of a vessel contravenes rules relating to pratique or quarantine or knowingly makes false declarations of health.

Section 75 (Protection of Government) mentions any vessel, person, article or thing being delayed, removed or detained.

One medical practitioner’s examination and report can be used temporarily for an interim reception order when obtaining two examinations would cause undue delay or inconvenience; the one-practitioner result must later be confirmed by another practitioner as soon as conveniently possible.

Every police officer must execute any lawful order of the Cabinet Secretary or any magistrate issued under this Act; anyone who resists or obstructs officials performing duties under this Act is guilty of an offence.

The Cabinet Secretary may exempt persons affected with leprosy in a private leper asylum by Gazette notice, may cancel such exemptions, medical officers may enter and inspect specified private leper establishments, and an appointed medical practitioner must inspect and report on such asylums at least once every six months.

Provides definitions for "asylum", "leprosy", and "specified area" for the purposes of this Part.

The Cabinet Secretary has authority to establish asylums, appropriate public land for them, fence such land, and to order the removal and detention of persons affected with leprosy by order.

Anyone who learns that another person within a specified area outside an asylum is (or is suspected to be) affected with leprosy must immediately report that fact or suspicion on oath to the district magistrate; failure to do so is an offence.

A magistrate who receives a report under section 78 must order that a police officer detain the reported person in an isolation place until examined under section 80.

A magistrate who has issued an isolation order must arrange for the person to be examined as soon as possible by two medical practitioners (one if possible a medical officer) and obtain a report of the examination.

If the medical practitioners report the person is not affected with leprosy, the magistrate must immediately discharge that person from detention in isolation.

The magistrate must order a person alleged to have leprosy to be removed to an asylum for detention; an interim reception order authorizes police to take the person to the asylum and authorizes their reception and detention until the Cabinet Secretary issues a further order.

Provides for an interim reception order and for reports to be sent to the Cabinet Secretary.

A person who suspects they have leprosy may present themselves to a district magistrate to seek treatment or isolation; the magistrate must detain and require two medical practitioners to examine the person.

If the Cabinet Secretary is satisfied a person detained under an interim reception order has leprosy, the Cabinet Secretary must make and sign a detention order addressed to an asylum superintendent; the medical officer must send at least annual reports on detainees' conditions; and the Cabinet Secretary may cancel the detention order and order discharge if further detention is unnecessary.

The Cabinet Secretary must submit medical reports to the Director-General for health when not satisfied that a person detained under an interim reception order has leprosy; may order further medical examination; must detain if satisfied the person has leprosy; must order discharge if not satisfied.

The Cabinet Secretary may order the superintendent of an asylum to discharge a detained person or move them to another asylum, and may (with the person's consent) order transfer to a private asylum named in a notice under subsection (1) of section 102.

The Cabinet Secretary may appoint superintendents who manage asylums subject to the Director-General for health; the Director-General may appoint and remove asylum staff subject to rules.

Every superintendent must inspect their appointed asylum and detained persons periodically, ensure proper food and comforts, keep premises clean, and perform other duties and exercise powers imposed by the Act or rules.

No person may enter an asylum except under rules made under the Act; persons detained in any asylum may not communicate or have intercourse with any person not detained therein who is not an officer or attendant, except as provided by the Act or rules.

People placed in isolation or detained in an asylum under this Act are deemed to be in lawful custody and, while in that custody, are subject to the Act and its rules; anyone who escapes such custody may be pursued and arrested without warrant by any person and returned to custody.

Persons lawfully detained under this Act are entitled to receive visits from relatives, friends or legal advisers, subject to reasonable times and restrictions set by rules under the Act.

Costs for building, establishing and maintaining asylums, removing and maintaining persons there, staff salaries and related disinfecting and cleansing during isolation shall be paid from moneys provided by Parliament.

The superintendent may, subject to the Cabinet Secretary's approval, recover an inmate's maintenance costs, allow construction of a building for an inmate within the asylum, and enter into special agreements on behalf of the Government.

The High Court may appoint a manager to care for property of a person removed to an asylum; the Director of Public Prosecutions may lay reports before the High Court; and the High Court may, where desirable, authorize payments from the detained person's funds and give directions for their application.

When a magistrate orders a person isolated under section 79, the medical officer of health must cause that person's residence to be cleansed and disinfected forthwith.

Persons detained in an asylum must be photographed from time to time as the superintendent decides; refusing or obstructing photographing and unlawfully supplying such photographs are offences punishable as the Cabinet Secretary prescribes.

Anyone guilty of an offence under this Part is liable to a fine up to fifteen thousand shillings, or imprisonment up to one year, or both.

Permits rules for isolating, examining, and removing to asylums persons affected or suspected of being affected with leprosy.

Defines key terms for this Part: "child", "public vaccinator", and "unprotected person".

Section 104. Vaccination of children Section a certificate of successful vaccination;

Unvaccinated adults (or the parent/guardian of unvaccinated children) in or entering Kenya must have themselves or the child successfully vaccinated within twelve months after entering Kenya.

Certain government medical officers may require persons (including parents/guardians for exposed children) to be vaccinated or revaccinated forthwith when exposed or suspected to have been exposed to smallpox; failure to comply is an offence.

If a public vaccinator or medical practitioner considers someone unfit for vaccination, they must issue a certificate to the adult or the parent/guardian of the child; that certificate lasts six months and can be renewed in six‑month periods until the practitioner deems the person fit, at which point the person must be vaccinated promptly.

If a public vaccinator or medical practitioner finds after three unsuccessful vaccinations that a person is insusceptible, or that the person has already been inoculated or had smallpox, they must give a certificate; such a certificate may only be given after three unsuccessful attempts at intervals of not less than one month using calf vaccine lymph of known efficiency.

Public vaccinators or medical practitioners who successfully vaccinate an adult or child must give the adult or the child's parent or guardian a certificate in Form No. 3 (or similar) certifying successful vaccination.

Public vaccinators must not charge any fee for certificates or vaccinations; public vaccinators or medical practitioners must record a sufficient description of the person on the certificate.

Superintendents or persons in charge of listed institutions must cause newly admitted inmates who are fit and not vaccinated within the preceding five years to be vaccinated within fourteen days of admission; if unfit at admission they must be vaccinated as soon as they become fit.

Children may not be admitted to or attend school unless a certificate or other satisfactory evidence that the Part's requirements have been complied with is produced to the person in charge; public vaccinators must, when instructed by the Director-General for health, inspect schools and report unvaccinated children.

Anyone who inoculates themselves or someone else using material from a smallpox patient or a vaccine vesicle, or by any method not prescribed in the rules, commits an offence.

Prescribes the form and information for vaccination records and requires specified persons to furnish and use them.

Medical officer of health may require owners of food storage buildings to repair rat-proofing; owners must follow written instructions; health authority may carry out repairs and recover costs; court may acquit if reasonable steps were taken.

No person shall reside or sleep in any kitchen or room where foodstuffs are prepared or stored for sale.

The local authority must prevent pollution dangerous to health of any water supply used by the public in its district for drinking or domestic purposes.

Allows rules to prohibit or regulate activities (bathing, washing, erecting certain structures, depositing manure/filth) that risk pollution of public water supplies and requires that rules be made with due regard to agricultural or other industries.

No person must sell, expose for sale, import, bring to market, or possess unwholesome or unfit food for humans or animals; certain officers may seize such food and a magistrate may order its destruction on recommendation.

Medical officers of health or persons authorized in writing may enter premises between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to inspect food, may seize food they consider unfit, magistrates may order disposal, and the person charged must prove the food was not exposed or deposited for sale.

A person found in possession of food liable to seizure under section 131 or 132 is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or both.

Provides for inspection of dairy stock, animals for human consumption, dairies and other places where food is manufactured, prepared or kept.

Requires medical examination of any person in premises where milk, dairy produce or other food intended for sale is collected, kept, sold or exposed for sale, or of any person engaged in the collection, preparation, keeping, conveyance or distribution of such items.

Municipal councils have specified powers to regulate, license and control milk and milk products (including ice-cream makers, dairies, conveyance, storage, sale, quality certification and prohibition where disease risk exists).

Designated breeding places (collections of water, sewage, rubbish, refuse, ordure or other fluid or solid substances) that permit or facilitate breeding or multiplication of parasites or insects are nuisances.

Occupiers or owners must keep premises free of containers and articles likely to retain water.

No person within a township shall permit premises they own, occupy or control to become overgrown with bush or long grass likely to harbour mosquitoes.

Keepers and occupiers must cover and protect water storage vessels to prevent mosquitoes entering them.

Occupiers or owners of premises with a cesspit must screen or protect the cesspit to the satisfaction of the medical officer of health to prevent mosquitoes; failure is an offence punishable by fines.

The medical officer of health may by written notice require the occupier or owner of premises with gutters (etc.) to have them perforated with holes at least every two feet to prevent water collecting; failure after service is an offence punishable by fines up to one hundred shillings and a further up to twenty shillings per day.

Medical officers of health, health inspectors, or persons specially authorized may immediately destroy mosquito immature stages found in water and take steps to prevent recurrence.

If mosquito immature stages are found in any collection of water on premises, the occupier or owner (or person in charge of certain articles) is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred shillings or, in default, imprisonment for seven days.

The Cabinet Secretary may appoint and notify in the Gazette places to be used as cemeteries; where such cemeteries exist the dead must be buried there in conformity with local authority rules; breach of such a rule is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand five hundred shillings.

Cemeteries currently in use and cemeteries authorized by the Cabinet Secretary with notice in the Gazette are treated as authorized cemeteries.

Exhumation of buried bodies is prohibited without a permit; permits may be granted by the Cabinet Secretary only to the legal personal representative, next of kin or their authorised agent; the permitting authority may impose precautions; unauthorised exhumation or failure to observe precautions is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding 1,500 shillings, except that a magistrate may order exhumation for an inquiry into cause of death.

The Cabinet Secretary may order removal (exhumation) of bodies for public works; the Government must arrange and pay for re-interment and monument re-erection; six months' notice and specific notification procedures are required for graves in authorized cemeteries.

A record must be kept of every permit granted and of every order made under section 146 or section 147; the record must contain particulars (race, nationality, name, sex, age, date and place of burial and of reburial or removal) so far as can be ascertained; and the record shall be open during office hours to inspection by any person.

The Cabinet Secretary may notify in the Gazette that a cemetery or burial ground is to be closed; burying there after the specified time is an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding 1,500 shillings.

Expenses the board incurs because someone defaulted on complying with an order or notice can be treated as paid for that person's use and recovered from that person as a civil debt.

Basements must not be occupied for habitation, and may not be used as a shop, workshop, factory, or for food preparation or storage without the written permission of the medical officer of health; basements must also be well lit, ventilated, free from damp and rat-proof to the satisfaction of the medical officer of health.

The Cabinet Secretary may make rules for conducting and inspecting lodging-houses; no person may open or keep open a lodging-house unless it is registered and its keeper is licensed by the local authority.

The Cabinet Secretary may make rules for conduct and inspection of various care institutions; premises cannot be opened or kept open unless licensed by the board; the Director-General may authorize medical practitioners to inspect; obstructing such an inspection is an offence.

The Cabinet Secretary may make rules for establishing, controlling and closing all markets and market buildings for the purposes of this Act.

When the local authority considers additional public latrine accommodation is needed on unleased public land, the local authority must apply in writing to the Cabinet Secretary specifying the site and accommodation; the Cabinet Secretary must, after due inquiry, give his decision.

Every local authority may, by public notice, prohibit washermen from washing clothes except at public wash-houses or places it appoints for that purpose.

The Cabinet Secretary may, after board advice and consultation with the Agriculture Cabinet Secretary, by order prohibit growing crops or irrigating land within a township or within three miles of it if such activity is shown to be unhealthful or insanitary, and may cancel related water permits on equitable terms.

The Cabinet Secretary may authorize inspection and sampling of vaccines and may prohibit their importation, manufacture or use if unsafe; the Cabinet Secretary may also make rules to carry this out.

Signatures of specified officers (secretary, town clerk, medical officer of health, sanitary inspector or District Commissioner) are sufficient authentication for notices, orders and other documents requiring authentication.

Notices, orders and other documents under this Act may be served by delivering them to or at the residence of the addressee; where addressed to the owner or occupier of premises, by delivering them or a true copy to some person on the premises or, if no person can be served, by fixing them on a conspicuous part of the premises; or by prepaid post, which is prima facie deemed served when the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.

Specified health officers may perform duties and exercise powers of the Director-General for health or of other named medical officers, subject to specified authority or designation.

A defect in the form of any notice or order under this Act does not invalidate the administrative action or make it unlawful, or provide grounds to contest related legal proceedings, provided the requirements are substantially and intelligibly set forth.

Specified health and police officers may enter land or premises to inspect or perform work when necessary for their duties, at reasonable hours; persons who refuse access, obstruct, give false information, or prevent compliance are guilty of an offence.

If no penalty is specified for an offence or contravention under the Act, a person convicted may be fined up to fifty thousand shillings, imprisoned up to six months, or both; continuing offences may attract up to one thousand shillings additional fine per day.

If a company or corporation contravenes this Act, the secretary or manager of that company may be summoned and shall be held liable for the contravention and its consequences.

If proceedings can be brought against several people for the same joint act or default, it is sufficient to bring proceedings against one or more of them without bringing proceedings against the others.

A health authority may prosecute contraventions, offences or defaults under this Act (through officers or authorized persons) when committed within or affecting its area; officers/persons who secure a conviction may recover fines and penalties as a civil debt summarily.

A municipal council may exercise powers or perform duties under this Act even if doing so requires acts or expenditure outside its area.

Municipal councils may make by-laws, with the Cabinet Secretary's approval, to prevent and abate breeding of mosquitoes and flies and to prevent malaria and other insect-borne diseases.

The Cabinet Secretary has the power to make rules to carry out the purposes of this Act.