Long distance truck drivers without certificates indicating they are free from Covid-19 will not be allowed into Uasin Gishu County.
Area county commissioner Abdirisak Jaldesa said checkpoints have been stationed at Nabkoi and Turbo along the northern highway to ensure all truck drivers entering the county have Covid-19 clearance certificates, “without which we shall not allow them to enter our county”.
He said they have been lenient on the truck drivers allowing them stopover in trading centres along the highway because of the congestion experienced at Malaba, “but the congestion has now been cleared and there is smooth flow of traffic, so there is no reason for the truckers to stop at Burnt Forest, Cheptiret, Maili Nne or Turbo, they should proceed and exit our county and head to the border after being cleared,” he stressed.
“The truck drivers have given us a lot of problems, they are the ones who have made the number of Covid-19 positive cases to increase in Uasin Gishu considering that 90% of the cases in the county are truck drivers,” said Jaldesa, noting that the County so far has 26 Covid-19 positive cases.
Speaking after accompanying Sports and Heritage Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Noor Hassan Noor on an inspection tour of the stalled Kipchoge Keino stadium Saturday, the County Commissioner urged the county residents to keep off the truck drivers as much as possible to minimise the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the county commissioner has accused some leaders of inciting residents to object conversion of some local health facilities into isolation or quarantine centres for Covid-19 patients.
He said of late wananchi in some parts of the county have been incited by a section of leaders to oppose isolation centres being set up in their health facilities to accommodate positive Covid-19 patients.
Jaldesa called for understanding from members of the community saying that as the number of positive Covid-19 cases continue to increase in the county, the number of quarantine and isolation centres have to be increased.
“The 30-bed capacity Kamalel isolation centre and other identified centres are already full due to an upsurge of Covid-19 cases in the last few weeks, and as the number of those found positive increases, they need to be quarantined and isolated and we have to get a place to keep them either in the urban or rural areas,” he said.
He wondered where those opposing to have health facilities within their areas converted into isolation centres want the Covid-19 patients to be kept.
“These are government facilities, and once the county government who manages the facilities and the emergency response team identifies them as isolation or quarantine centres, wananchi should allow the health experts do their job,” he said.
He assured the community that necessary precautions will be put in place to ensure the chosen facilities are safe adding that there should be no fear that keeping the Covid-19 patients in a local facility will spread the disease to the community.
“We want to assure wananch in Uasin Gishu that all necessary measures have been put in place to secure health facilities identified for isolation and the residents should not allow being incited by a few leaders,” he added.
Last week, residents of Elgeyo border demonstrated and threatened to evict Covid-19 patients who had been taken to Tembelio health centre for isolation.
Jaldesa said from the lessons they learned from the Tembelio incident, the emergency response committee will be moving to sensitise the community in any health facility identified as an isolation centre, at least a week before any patients are admitted.
By Kiptanui Cherono
Truck drivers without covid-19 certificates denied entry into Uasin Gishu
