About Tabibu
Health answers you can check.
Tabibu is a health information service that shows its sources, puts emergency help first and says when an answer is only general knowledge. It started in Kenya, where it knows the guidelines, the insurance scheme, local medicine names and emergency numbers in depth, and it is being built to hold the same standard anywhere.
Why we built it
A health answer you cannot check is not an answer.
Most AI health tools sound equally sure everywhere. They do not show where an answer came from, they do not know the local rules, and they can quote a dose they should have left to a clinician. In Kenya, for example, a fever should raise a malaria flag, SHA replaced NHIF in 2024, and the pill sold as “Brufen” is ibuprofen.
We built Tabibu to close that gap: answers built from a library of published guidelines with the sources shown, a rule that sends emergencies to real local numbers before the language model runs, and country knowledge kept as checked data. Kenya came first, with an SHA and SHIF explainer, Kenyan guidelines and Kenyan helplines. Emergency numbers are listed for 15 countries.
The aim is simple: health information that shows its working, in more places each month.
What it does
Depth where we started: Kenya.
SHA and SHIF, explained
Contributions, cover, referrals and claims in plain language, against the scheme rules SHA publishes, with a link to check each one.
A library of Kenyan guidelines
Answers are built from published Kenyan guidelines and law, not from memory. Each answer shows the documents it used.
Kenya’s disease context
A fever in western Kenya is weighed for malaria and typhoid, not flu. Symptom questions are read against Kenya’s disease patterns.
Medicines by their Kenyan names
Brufen, Panadol and Septrin are matched to their generics, with known interactions flagged. The interaction set is small and growing; where there is no entry, Tabibu says so instead of guessing.
Pharmacies and prices
Find pharmacies near you and compare shilling prices from MyDawa and Goodlife, with over-the-counter versus prescription guidance.
Emergencies first
A message that sounds like a stroke, heavy bleeding or thoughts of self-harm gets Kenyan emergency numbers before anything else, not a US crisis line.
Where answers come from
Documents you can open.
When a source is used, the answer shows its link. When nothing relevant is found, Tabibu says so. None of these organisations endorses or is affiliated with Tabibu.
- Kenya Ministry of Health clinical guidelines
- Kenya Essential Medicines List
- National Medicines Formulary
- Basic Paediatric Protocols
- NASCOP (HIV) guidelines
- National TB programme (NTLD-P)
- Kenya Law: health and SHA statutes
- Pharmacy and Poisons Board
- Social Health Authority (SHA)
- WHO guidance
Our boundaries
What we promise, and what we do not.
- It informs. It does not diagnose, and it does not give prescription, child or high-risk doses.
- Answers carry their sources; if there is no source for a Kenyan fact, it says so.
- Every answer carries a short reminder that treatment decisions belong with a qualified provider.
- We do not use your health conversations to train AI.
Norah Labs, the company behind Tabibu Health, is registered with Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) under the Data Protection Act. This is entity-level registration and is not a separate ODPC certification of the Tabibu product. Read the trust details.
Contact
Talk to us.
Tabibu Health is a product of Norah Labs. Found a mistake, have a privacy question, or want Tabibu for your clinic or programme? Write to us.