If you have to go to Kenya in 2021 you will probably learn at some point that Kenyan government instituted new requirements for the COVID-19 tests, called Trusted Traveler (TT) or Digitally Verified COVID-19 testing, to enter Kenya.
I had to travel to Kenya in February 2021, right after it was adopted, and there was not much information about it online. So when I learned about it, it caused me a lot of headache. No local labs in US where I live (Pacific NW) seem to be aware of the Trusted Traveler (TT) program, or the PanaBios system.
I tried to go to https://africacdc.org/trusted-travel/ like they suggested here and if you scroll down to “Check Travel Requirements For Your Travel Here” and happen to find your country and airport in that unwieldy list, it will give you another rather unmanageable list. What is all that stuff?
I was also trying to understand these instructions. And it was less than helpful.
Suggestions
Now, please differentiate two things. Traveling out of Kenya (say, to United States) is not the same thing. In that case pretty much any decent clinic (like Aga Khan University in Nairobi, or others on the list they provide here) will get you the COVID test results that are Trusted Traveler (TT) compatible. This is their system and they know how to use it.
The issue is with traveling to Kenya from outside of Africa where there’s little information about their Trusted Traveler (TT) program.
So going to Kenya from US, was way more frustrating. Like in my case, I’m in the Washington state and there was nothing in the 100 mile radius from me that is on their list of approved labs.
The only things that seemed to work for me was to get some at-home kit (found one for $290) that can be overnighted + 1 day for processing (2 days total). After that hopefully they would email me the results that I had to upload to the Kenyan portal that should issue that digital verified truster-traveler barcode. But I did not go for this method, as it had too many things that could fail: shipping, some online lab and their processing, would at-home kit be enough, etc. I didn’t want to risk it!
As you can imagine one needs to do this test 4 days before departure (or maybe even arrival) when all the tickets and other reservations are already in place. So yeah. It was also freaking anxiety inducing!
Eventually I was able to find a clinic next to the major airport near Seattle. Just take your time and go through the giant list of approved labs one by one with a search engine (you can get to that list if you fill out “Check Travel Requirements For Your Travel Here” form here.) Then find the labs that are closer to you and contact them. (I know, it takes a few days, and it sucks.)
After that, do the test and when you get the results, create an account and upload it (in PDF form) to their website. Then you will have to answer a few simple questions and the site will generate you a QR code right away, which you can print out or keep it in your phone for the Kenyan customs agent. This worked for me. (Again, all steps are explained here.)
If you ask me though, I think pretty much any 72-hour COVID-19 RT-PCR test would have sufficed. I’m basing it on the fact that there’s no way someone could’ve verified my test results within the time that it took me to upload it. So it feels like an automated process that just generates a QR code for whatever you upload there. (And this is just a bunch of Kenyan red tape, if you ask me.)
Good luck!
Travel, Coding & Stuff 