Doctors have raised alarm about the government’s efforts in contact tracing after Kenya confirmed its first case of the Ebola virus and death on Tuesday.
Doctors Dennis Miskellah and Joseph Kariuki while appearing on KTN on Tuesday night said that the reporting of the case on Tuesday yet the patient landed in the country on Saturday showed laxity by government.
They questioned why the patient was allowed to leave the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for Nairobi Hospital after landing in the country from Uganda, where he had travelled to by road from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“This patient left the airport directly to the hospital and for these two or three days he was receiving visitors and they were all going back somewhere,” said Miskellah.
The two medics said that the country is ill-prepared to fight the virus saying that the government should up its efforts.
Keep Reading
They said that the government should crack the whip and go after the people they say slept on their jobs by allowing the patient to leave JKIA despite landing while sickly.
“When we are buying time this thing is moving,” said Miskellah adding that the government should have put more focus on preventing the virus from landing into the country instead of preparing to respond.
Dr Kariuki said that Kenya was not prepared to test the virus since results should come out between four to six hours but in this case, it took more than two days for the results to come out.
“This is not something that we can afford to joke with,” he said adding that the disease should have seen a systemic control from government.
He argued that the opportunity to educate Kenyans on the disease on how to prevent and deal with the symptoms and post care.
The two argued that politics is key and there should be political goodwill to fight the virus by seeking to shut it from entering the country.
Andrew Wasike, a senior nursing official at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), said that as of Tuesday evening 11 people who were in contact with the deceased patient were already in isolation.
He said that the national government and Nairobi County had reached out to all people who had contact with the patient for isolation.
Miskellah and Kariuki called out governors for not doing enough to improve health in their counties saying they should not play politics.
According to the two medics, if counties had good health systems in place then it would easy to fight the virus but that is not the case.
Kenya has only five testing centers namely; National Public Health Laboratory, KEMRI Nairobi, KEMRI Kisumu and two Mobile clinics stationed in Busia and Bungoma counties.
The available treatment facilities are KNH has eight bed isolation and treatment unit, Kenya National Police Hospital has 49 bed available for activation and the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret which as 20 isolation beds and an additional 30 surge beds.
Other treatment facilities are Alupe Hospital, Utange, Emali, Eldoret and the Kenyaytta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital.
The government has said that it had identified isolation and treatment sites in at least 29 counties with focus being on constructing additional facilities in border counties for easier surveillance.
The United States of America has a treatment facility at the Laikipia Airbase which was developed in partnership with the Kenya Defence Forces.