Spotlight: The Social Enterprise Weaving Healthcare Into Every Thread

In a small production unit on the outskirts of Nairobi, 34 women are sewing wound dressings. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is that each dressing is made from a fabric they helped develop—a plant-fibre textile infused with antimicrobial compounds derived from locally sourced moringa and neem. The women aren’t just employees. They are co-owners of Mediwrap, a social enterprise that is simultaneously creating dignified employment and addressing one of East Africa’s most persistent public-health challenges: post-surgical infection.

The Problem Mediwrap Is Solving

Surgical-site infections affect an estimated 11% of patients in low- and middle-income countries, compared to around 2% in high-income settings. The gap is largely explained by the cost and availability of sterile dressings, which are typically imported and priced beyond the reach of public health facilities operating on constrained budgets. Mediwrap’s dressings cost 60% less than comparable imported products and can be produced locally, reducing supply-chain fragility.

“We’re not competing with global medical-supply companies. We’re serving a market they’ve never considered entering—and we’re doing it with materials that grow 40 kilometres from the factory.”

The Business Model

Mediwrap sells primarily to public hospitals and NGO-run clinics through a direct procurement model that bypasses the distributor layer responsible for much of the cost markup in medical supply chains. A portion of revenue is reinvested into a revolving loan fund that allows employee-owners to buy additional equity stakes over time, building wealth for women who would otherwise have limited access to productive assets.

The enterprise graduated from YSI’s East Africa cohort in 2024, and has since closed a €380,000 impact investment from a European health-focused foundation. The capital is being used to double production capacity and obtain WHO prequalification for the dressings—a certification that would open doors to procurement by international agencies at significant scale.

Early Results

In a 12-month pilot with three public hospitals in Nairobi County, post-surgical infection rates in wards using Mediwrap dressings fell by 40% compared to control wards using conventional imported products. The trial was conducted independently by researchers at the University of Nairobi and is currently being written up for peer-reviewed publication. If the results hold at larger scale, the implications for health system cost savings are substantial—and the commercial opportunity for Mediwrap grows accordingly.