The Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Health gazetted new Pictorial Health Warnings for Kenya under s 21(4) of the Tobacco Control Act on 14 February 2025.  

The new warnings refresh Kenya’s mandatory pictorial health warnings, which cover 30% of the front and 50% of the back principal display areas of tobacco product packaging, with a series of image and text warnings that broaden the types of risks covered in the warnings. The warnings now also cover smokeless tobacco and emerging tobacco and nicotine products such as e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches.  

The warnings also further implementation of article 11.1.b of the WHO FCTC, which specifies that health warnings and messages shall be rotating, and aligns with recommendations in the article 11 Implementation Guidelines to use a range of health warnings and messages to increase the likelihood of impact and to regularly alternate health warnings to ensure their continued effectiveness. 

The Knowledge Hub's Regional Manager for Africa, Rachel Kitonyo-Devotsu, states: ‘Available research indicates that the impact of the pictorial health warnings adopted in 2014 had waned over time. The move by the government of Kenya to adopt new pictorial health warnings will help to educate smokers and nonsmokers on the risks particularly of novel tobacco and nicotine products in the Kenyan market, and complement other tobacco control measures such as recently adopted increases in tobacco taxes’ 

The gazetted warnings must now proceed to Parliament for scrutiny. Under the Tobacco Control Act, the new pictorial health warnings will be implemented after a 9-month implementation period. 

Kenya’s first set of pictorial health warnings were implemented in the Tobacco Control Regulations of 2014 and appeared on tobacco packs from 2016 onwards. The Tobacco Control Regulations were challenged in a series of court cases from 2015-2019, which were all won by the Government of Kenya. During the process of refreshing the Pictorial Health Warnings and other aspects of Kenya’s tobacco control laws, some individuals launched another legal challenge to the Tobacco Control Regulations – but this challenge was swiftly dismissed for having been finally decided in 2019.  

Kenya is one of 18 Parties in WHO's Africa Region (AFRO) that have adopted mandatory pictorial health warnings. The largest pictorial health warnings in the region are implemented by Benin, which requires warnings to cover 90% of the front and back principal display areas of tobacco product packaging, and Mauritius, which requires warnings on 80% of the front and 100% of the back principal display areas of tobacco product packaging.