Nearly 40% of all tests were carried out by Kikuyu men.

83% of all DNA tests in Kenya were carried out by Kikuyu, Luo, Kamba, Luhya, Kalenjin, and Kisii Men.

Luos (12%), Kambas (9.5%), Luhya (9.0%), Kalenjins (6.7%) and Kisii (6.0%) followed in that order.

If you exclude Caucasians and Non-Kenyan Africans, the rest of the 36 tribes accounted for less than 10% of all DNA tests conducted in Kenya.

Legal vs Non-Legal Testing

Paternity of children can be ascertained before they are born. The invasive prenatal DNA test

is done to determine if a particular man is the biological father of an unborn child and is performed between week 16-20 of pregnancy. It is 99.99% accurate and is based on comparison of 24 genetic markers between the mother, unborn baby, and the alleged father. Samples used are amniotic fluid from the mother and alleged father’s sample (mouth swab)

The Non-invasive prenatal (NIPT) DNA test determines the paternity of the unborn child from as early as week 8 of pregnancy after the last menstrual period. Unlike the invasive prenatal DNA test, the NIPT test is 100% safe to the mother and child because fetal cells are obtained from maternal plasma and there’s no need of amniocentesis.

“Even though the NIPT Test is 4 times more expensive than the Invasive prenatal Test, more women chose to conduct the NIPT Test to determine their children’s paternity”

In 4.3% of all tested cases, single incompatibilities in one marker system were observed. However, this is not sufficient for exclusion of paternity, but can be considered as a mutation event. The biostatistical analysis of the PCR marker systems were performed according to the method of Essen-Möller and the mutation events included in the calculation. Results were issued as positive and based on the assumption that no other near relative (father, brother) can also be considered as possible fathers. It is possible for laboratories that are not staffed by adequately trained scientists to incorrectly issue such reports where mutations have taken place as negative reports instead of positive reports.

We also identified two cases displaying triallelic patterns at a single STR locus. This is the first time that such findings are being reported in Kenya.

One case of XXY female was detected using DNA testing. This is indicative of Klinefelter Syndrome. Two XX males, all from the Kamba Tribe, were identified separately.

Paternity calculations for samples from Africa are usually based on African American population data. Is it possible that DNA test reports from Kenya and other African countries are incorrectly computed?

Using data from the 6,169 people, we tabulated the STR frequencies of the universal markers used in relationship testing and compared this with previously published data from African Americans. No significant difference was observed between Kenyan frequencies and previously published African American frequencies (p>0.05, CI=95%). The Kenyan population data is in Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. This implies that the paternity indices calculated for Kenyans using the FBI African American datasets when determining paternity are accurate. The corollary is that African American frequency data by FBI and Promega can be accurately used to compute PIs of Kenyans during paternity testing.