Alarm as three children die of Hepatitis A in Uasin Gishu county

Uasin Gishu County Governor Jonathan Bii. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

Three children under the age of ten have died of Hepatitis A over the last three months in Uasin Gishu county.

The County Health Executive Committee member Abraham Serem said yesterday that ten more cases have been detected in the region, particularly in Ziwa, Soy sub-county.

The new cases are of children under the age of 13. Serem said the victims of the viral infection were attended to by medics at Ziwa Hospital before being referred to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) Eldoret for specialised treatment.

He noted that a significant increase in Hepatitis A cases has been recorded over the past month.

"We have ordered testing kits and are working with the Ministry of Health and the MTRH to ensure that we quickly detect cases and deal with the situation," Serem said.

The Health CEC was speaking when Governor Jonathan Bii toured Uasin Gishu County Hospital in Eldoret town to assess service delivery to the public.

He warned that with the heavy rains in the region, there was likelihood of outbreak of waterborne diseases and assured that the county had deployed public health officers to monitor the situation in all areas.

Governor Bii allayed fears that Hepatitis A was spreading at an alarming rate saying that paramedical staff in the county had taken measures to contain the disease in the affected areas.

"There should be no cause for alarm at all since our medical teams have taken precious measures to control the situation in the affected areas to avert spreading of the disease," he said.

He said his administration has already rolled out sensitisation programme through community health workers and promoters across the county on the danger posed by the disease.

The governor promised to address the promotion of health workers who have stagnated for more than two decades in one job group.

He announced that his administration will hire 150 health workers to address staff shortage in public hospitals and upgrade health facilities in the county as part of measures to decongest MTRH.

Bii said that several hospitals are having staff shortage as high number of health workers leave the country for greener pastures abroad.