Politics of division and the re-emergence of communicable diseases

Our healthcare system is undergoing reverse progression. Decades back, polio, measles, cholera, malaria, elephantiasis and leprosy ravaged large populations. Over the years, advances in medical science gradually took care of many of the diseases which, at some point, were decreed to have been eradicated. One such disease is polio, which, unfortunately, has made a comeback in Kenya and Nigeria; two of Africa’s biggest economies. At the Coast, elephantiasis and leprosy are making their re-emergence felt. It does not help that children born in the past five months have not had mandatory vaccinations to keep some of these diseases at bay.

After the cholera outbreak in parts of the country, malaria, a treatable disease, has made its presence strongly felt by claiming tens of lives in Baringo, Lamu, Turkana, Marsabit and West Pokot, and it is getting worse. This cannot be blamed on the nurses’ strike, rather, on paralysis in the national government. In the first place, there are no hospitals in hard-hit areas where the lucky to be attended to patients lie on the dusty, rocky ground with drips suspended on tree branches. Notably, the caretakers are Red Cross personnel. To the residents of these areas, the Government might as well reside on Mars. Insecurity, hunger, illiteracy, marginalisation, diseases; you name it, they’ve stoically endured it all.