Health officials in Garissa on Saturday night took advantage of the ongoing dawn to dusk curfew to fumigate the streets of Garissa town as they stepped up measures to limit the spread of the deadly Corona virus.
The fumigation carried out by the Garissa fire trucks focused more on the Tana bridge road where over 30 buses from Wajir, Mandera and Garissa use to and from Nairobi daily.
Other areas of concern were the Garissa police station, the Garissa referral hospital and the Garissa open air market with high human traffic.
Addressing the press after witnessing the exercise, the County Director of Public Health, Salat Dagane said that the disease ‘is real and is with us’.
“The best thing to do now is to prevent because treating the sick will be quite expensive,” Dagane said.
He said that the county has trained over 200 health workers who were ready to deal with the disease.
Apart from setting up an isolation ward, the county has also sets six ICU beds to treat Corona patients.
Dagane urged area residents to adhere to the Ministry of Health guidelines to avoid contracting and spreading the diseases
“Please wash your hands regularly, stop shaking hands, keep your social distance and above all, stay at home unless you have something very important to do out there,” he added.
“This is the only way you can protect yourself from this pandemic,” he added.
He asked the residents to immediately report any suspected cases to the isolation centre at the Garissa Referral Hospital using the hotlines that have been provided.
His deputy, Ibrahim Mohamed said that all the six sub-counties have activated their response teams and ‘are now ready to handle cases of the Coronavirus.’
Mohamed told parents to engage their children at home and not to allow them to go and play outside to avoid contracting the disease.
By Jacob Songok
