Kenyan President's AI-generated videos are incorrectly linked to new health insurance plans

Kenyan President William Ruto set up the Social Health Agency (SHA) in October 2024 to replace the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) as a state health insurance provider, prompting his opponents to criticize. However, a Tiktok video claimed he showed him “preparing” hospital patients created for a press conference, created by AI software in images taken in 2019. Original photos show Ruto, who was then vice president, visited the victims of the terrorist attack.

“Behind the scenes, Ruto found the preparation of patients to launch SHA (SIC).” Tiktok Posts Published on April 19, 2025 and shared more than 100 times.

The video's juxtaposition title claims that Ruto “didns” on TV during a panel discussion hosted by Citizen TV on April 17, 2025.

Although the discussion has nothing to do with Kenya's new health care system, a group member explain Ruto here).

A day ago, Ruto had Committeeed The public of Kenya's first National Defense Forces Hospital (archived here).

The clip appears to show Ruto standing next to the patient next to the bed, and he adjusts her bedspread. Two doctors stood beside him, while three other men in suits were reflected in the mirror above the patient's bed. A beep can be heard in the background.

The post was posted by an account (with over 49,000 followers) and was primarily about sharing AI-generated content.

New state insurance plan

The Kenyan government is officially emission this Sha October 1, 2024, as part of a plan to expand access to universal health coverage (UHC) (archive here and here).

This is mandatory for all Kenyan residents, including expats who have lived for more than one year Target Fill out the gap in previous NHIF by expanding the scope of care to include cancer and common health conditions screening. It also offers a wider range of outpatient services and includes standardized surgical tariffs in all healthcare providers (archived here).

But since its inception, the insurance plan has criticize Poor communication, an unclear implementation framework and its purchase Process (Archive here and here).

Despite the shortcomings, Ruto continues defend Shah urge Kenyans sign up for new health plan (archive here and here).

However, Tiktok's video claims to show Ruto videos using patients to promote SHA.

Old image animation

AFP conducted Reverse image search On the keychain in the clip, a photo depicting the same event was found publishing On January 17, 2019, Kenya News Media Citizen TV Station on Facebook (Archived here).

“DP Ruto visited victims of 14 Riverside terrorist attacks,” the post reads.

Several clues point out that using AI software to animate this image as a video.

The first frame is the exact match of the original photo, typical of the photo-to-video AI tools such as Vidfly and Invideo AI work – starting with the image and adding prompts to generate the video.

For a second in the video, the patient's left arm disappeared until Ruto seemed to have adjusted the blue bedspread.

A second later, the patient seemed to be pushing the blanket. Her fingers and Ruto's movement seemed to be twisted.

Further searches show real videos of Ruto hospital visits Shared January 17, 2019, Kenya News Blog Thika Town on Facebook (Archive) here).

In it, Ruto can be seen holding a hand on his knee and holding the same patient's hand when he pulled apart, unlike the Tiktok video, where he started messing with the blue bed cover.

The white and blue striped sheets on the patient's bed were also edited in the Tiktok video. Another difference is her left hand: it's still the cover of the 2019 video, but it's visible in the Tiktok clip.

The same is true for citizen television publishing Video of Ruto's visit to Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi in 2019 (Archive) here).

Although different from Thika Town’s videos, both sets of videos have some of the same patients as Ruto’s interviews with the media.