The Mt Kenya region suffers from a high prevalence of portable spirits with devastating impact on consumers, the National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse has said.
However, a report released on Friday shows that the Western region leads in the use of chang'aa at 11.4 per cent followed by Nyanza at 6.3 per cent and Rift Valley at 3.6 per cent.
The Central region on the other hand has the highest prevalence of portable spirits at 4.1 per cent followed by Coast at 3.2 per cent and Rift valley at 3.1 per cent.
This is according to Nacada's latest survey on drug and substance use in the country.
While speaking during the release of the report, Nacada board chairman Stephen Mairori said government interventions have been directed to Central region despite the report showing that Western is leading in traditional brews because majority of spirits used in Central have high alcohol levels and very toxic.
"Central is leading in the portable spirits and from our research, we have seen that the content of those spirits, the alcohol levels are very high and some are very poisonous. That is why when people take them they are affected very badly,” Mairori said.
"While on the other sides like Western Kenya you have busaa and the rest though it affects the people, it's not as bad as what we see in Central,” he added.
The national survey report on the status of drugs and substance use in Kenya 2022 was conducted in selected clusters spread across all the 47 counties in the country.
The study sampled Kenyans aged between 15 and 65 years with a total of 3,314 interviews conducted.
It sought to provide estimates to track the national, regional, urban and rural drugs and substance use indicators.
From the report, one in six Kenyans aged between 15 and 65 years translating to 4.7 million Kenyans are currently using one form of substance.
The report said alcohol is the most widely abused substance with one in eight Kenyans aged 15 to 65 or three million people currently using alcohol.