In Nairobi, the Ministry of Health and county officials chose to either dismiss the initial reports about the disease in the city or try to dodge responsibility for its control.
Indeed City Hall is yet to make public the results of its investigation into the incident involving Weston Hotel where about 50 people attending an international conference contracted the disease last month.
Standard response should have involved some form of quarantine of the hotel and screening of staff and visitors.
The grave consequence of this official inertia is we are at 381 cases reported across the country and counting.
The health authorities’ response to the cholera outbreak in different parts of the country has been unacceptably lethargic.
In Nairobi, the Ministry of Health and county officials chose to either dismiss the initial reports about the disease in the city or try to dodge responsibility for its control.
Indeed City Hall is yet to make public the results of its investigation into the incident involving Weston Hotel where about 50 people attending an international conference contracted the disease last month.
Standard response should have involved some form of quarantine of the hotel and screening of staff and visitors.
The grave consequence of this official inertia is we are at 381 cases reported across the country and counting.
Worse still, the response remains sluggish. On Wednesday, Health secretary Cleopa Mailu issued a directive shutting down two city hotels he said provided catering services at a high-profile trade forum at Nairobi’s Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) last week.
Jacaranda, one of the hotels sanctioned by Dr Mailu, says that the directive was based on reports that three of their security guards called-in sick with cholera symptoms.
A decision with the potential to damage a multi-million shilling business should surely have taken a little more fact-finding.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
