Kenya, as a country, now boasts of two newly established
centres which can help in testing for Coronavirus.
Until Tuesday, Coronavirus suspects' samples were being
flown to South Africa for tests.
The new laboratories hosted by National Public Health
Laboratories and Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) are set to start
conducting the tests with an immediate effect.
This was according to the Tuesday reports by the Health
Director-General Mr. Patrick Amoth. "We received the kits on Sunday and
will now be able to test for the new coronavirus," stated Mr. Amoth.
Lack of reagent kits in the past made Kenya unable to
establish whether the previous suspects had coronavirus or not.
The coronavirus outbreak which originated from Wuhan City in
China has already claimed over 1,000 lives so far, with the World Health
Organization (WHO) moving to declare it a global emergency.
According to Dr. Kalebi, coronavirus tests required a
sophisticated test based on molecules through a test namely Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) identifying the virus in a sample via Ribonucleic Acid (RNA)
sequence known as probes, and probably match for the virus.
Having the reagent kits now available, Dr. Kalebi stated
that it would take utmost a day, to test for the virus.
Until a week ago, only South Africa and Senegal were able to
test for the virus, against the WHO wish that every African state be able to
handle the tests.
So far seven suspects in Kenya have undergone the tests and
turned out negative, with no new infection cases.
WHO has already engaged and trained technicians locally, in
attempts to evade delays triggered by having to send the samples abroad.
"Without vital diagnostic capacities, countries are in
darkness as to how far and wide the virus has spread, and who has coronavirus
or another disease with similar symptoms," said the WHO Director-General
Dr. Tedros Adhanom on Monday.