The patient was resistant to 14 antibiotics, five drugs showed promise of clearing the infection and were to be administered into the vein, and three had a 50-50 chance of curing the UTI.
The overselling of over-the-counter antibiotics by unscrupulous drug store owners and over-consumption of the medicines by uninformed patients is to blame for the drug resistance.
In most chemists, especially those located in low-income areas, any patient who walks in, with or without a doctor's prescription, is likely to walk out with an antibiotic, whether he has a flu, headache or stomach pain.
Buying fakes, dispensing antibiotics without prescriptions and patients abandoning the medicines are some of the factors fuelling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when a bacteria, virus or parasite stops an antibiotic, antiviral and antimalarial drug from working against it.
Just like Mr Ouma in Kibera, she does not buy drugs in bulk and mostly stocks antibiotics, antimalarial, cough syrups, painkillers and pessaries, in small quantities.
