This archive report was first published on 19 May 2020.
Published on May 19, 2020, Kenya has taken steps to ease cargo delays at the Tanzania border by setting up more laboratories to speed up COVID-19 testing.
According to Health Chief Administrative Secretary Rashid Aman, testing centres will be opened in Migori town or Isebania, Taita Taveta, and Lunga Lunga, in addition to the Namanga mobile laboratory that is to be installed soon.
The move aims to reduce the time it takes for truck drivers to receive their test results, which has been a major cause of delays at the border points.
Truck drivers have complained about being forced to wait for over three days for the test results, causing snarl-ups at the border points and goods to go bad.
“The problem we currently have is along the Tanzanian border at Isebania, Namanga, and Taita Taveta where we do not yet have functional laboratories that can do the test and turn around the results very quickly,” said Dr Aman.
He noted that the country has enough capacity to test truckers at the border posts with Uganda, with laboratories in Busia and Kisumu.
