This archive report was first published on 13 July 2020.
Kenya's Covid-19 Response in Shambles ¶
When Kenya confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on March 24, the government set out to stop the virus with a strategy of test, trace, and isolate. However, four months later, the country seems to have lost the plot, with some of the measures being abandoned as infections continue to soar.
According to a spot-check by the Nation, political announcements and the reality on the ground parted ways, with patchwork and appendages now underway on the initial strategy. A close look at happenings on the ground reveals that the ball might have dropped in some key areas of the plan, including testing, contact tracing, and isolation.
Testing has been a monumental problem for the country, with a dismal 50 tests per every positive case in May. In contrast, South Africa, Uganda, and Rwanda were conducting 200,000, 333, and 100 tests respectively. Things have improved in recent weeks, with 207,897 suspected cases tested and 9,726 found positive, but this falls short of the government's target to test 250,000 people by the end of June.
Targeted mass testing that had been launched in virus hotspots has since stopped. The Kenya Medical Association Vice-President, Prof Lukoye Atwoli, said the country's capacity to test has not increased as anticipated, and many people could have the virus and are not aware of it.
"I believe we still need to do more testing to detect the actual number of people who have the virus in the community," Prof Atwoli said. "The inability to find out the actual situation on the ground is a major setback."
Dr Andrew Suleh, a consultant physician, renal, and tropical medicine specialist, said a combination of factors fuelled the problem, including a shortage of testing kits and materials, backlogs at laboratories, and a surge in cases that have spread to 41 counties.
"Our testing strategy has not been well-coordinated, and while it was crucial to implement wide-scale testing from the beginning, the government failed from the get-go," he said.
Regarding contact tracing, Dr Majid Twahir, the associate dean for clinical affairs and chief of staff at Aga Khan University Hospital, said that the strategy was working in the initial stages because there were few chains of transmission. However, as the cases kept rising and spreading to almost all counties, especially in rural areas, it became hard to do effective contact tracing.
"The government has done a great job, but it has not been easy to trace all contacts because the numbers are high and continue to rise daily," he said.
Professor Atwoli said tracing of people who have interacted with Covid-19 patients may have failed because it requires a significant resource outlay. Dr Francis Kuria, an incident commander, Contact Tracing and Data Management, said human resources is a big challenge, with only four employees and 28 volunteers, who are not motivated all the time.
Isolation and quarantine were aimed at preventing exposure to people who had or were suspected to have Covid-19. However, the Health ministry's latest situation report notes little contact tracing is ongoing amid community infections.
