Tana River county government is ill prepared to deal with Coronavirus in case of an outbreak, Bura MP Ali Wario has said.
Wario was referring to failure by the county health department in Hola to pick a suspected Covid-19 patient isolated at Madogo health centre yesterday despite having been alerted at around 11 am.
Talking to KNA on phone today Wario said that if the county cannot pick a patient 150 kms away for isolation then how are ‘they going to cope with an outbreak’.
According to a medic at the Madogo health centre who requested anonymity they received the patient exhibiting symptoms of the Covid-19 yesterday in the morning and they had to isolate her at one of the maternity wards overnight.
“We immediately informed our team in Hola who promised to pick the patient. But this morning (today) they had not,” the medic said.
Wario said that the patient spent the night at the ward that ‘is not meant for Covid-19 victims.
The MP said although it’s not time to apportion blame, the county government should wake up to the reality that Covid-19 ‘is not any other disease’.
He said the county government should move with speed and provide protective gears to its heath workers who are the first line of defense.
The legislator said that with some of the people who had contacts with positive cases being traced to rural areas, then there is likelihood that more cases could be reported outside Nairobi soon.
Wario observed that most of the health facilities in the county lack basic drugs thus complicating matters in containing the virus.
“The county administration should divert all its available resources to carry out mass campaign on the prevention of the spread of the deadly virus, otherwise we are staring at a disaster,” Wario said.
“I want to urge my fellow leaders to use available channels to educate the population on the need to observe government directives to limit the spread of the virus,” he added.
The number of Kenyans testing positive for the virus rose to 122 as at yesterday and 4 deaths. The ministry of health now warns that the number of infections could shoot to 10,000 by end of this month if more stringent measures are not put in place to contain the spread.
By Jacob Songok
