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First case of coronavirus confirmed as CS outlines control plans

Kenya confirms first coronavirus case - VIDEO
“It was not a matter of if, but when,” Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said Friday as he faced a weary nation on the steps of Harambee House in Nairobi.
He had ominous news for the country, and to deliver it, he had behind him a battery of senior government officials, including fellow Cabinet secretaries.
After days of anxiety marked by strong criticism that the government was being reckless in its handling of the coronavirus threat, Mr Kagwe had bad news for the country – his ministry had confirmed the first case of the deadly virus on Kenyan soil.
The patient’s test results, a 27-year-old female who is quarantined at Kenyatta National Hospital’s Infectious Disease Unit (KNH-IDU), showed she was positive on Thursday night. She had travelled to Kenya from the United States on March 5, and it is believed she got infected while abroad, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a press statement.
From the airport, the patient, whose identity is being protected for ethical and legal reasons, went to Ongata Rongai, a sprawling settlement 20 kilometres south-east of the city, where she stayed for several days. A team of rapid response experts was dispatched there to trace the people she had been in contact with before her isolation.
Mr Kagwe said the patient was confirmed positive by the National Influenza Centre Laboratory. Saying she is a Kenyan of African descent who had travelled from Ohio via Chicago and London, the CS dismissed as misguided notions that Africans were immune to the disease.
“Going forward, there will be some inconveniences, but this is the one time where we are calling on serious citizen responsibility,” said Mr Kagwe. “We also want the public to understand that self-quarantine is not a request. If you fail to comply we will take action.”
Across the fence, on the pavements of Harambee Avenue, tens of onlookers peeped into the hallowed grounds where Mr Kagwe and his team stood. They could not access the press conference, yet the implications of the pronouncements will greatly affect how they go about their lives in the days to come.
And, in a meeting between Cabinet secretaries and senior editors immediately after the press conference, Interior CS Fred Matiang’i noted that the government will not hesitate to invoke the Public Order Act should need arise. Such an invocation would greatly curtail movement and put hotspots in the country on lockdown.
By early afternoon Friday, the effects of the announcement on public gatherings were already apparent — schools cancelled prize-giving ceremonies, public barazas were called off, and political rallies were put on hold.
Schools and colleges present a particular headache for the government since they collectively accommodate about 15 million learners every day, from nursery school all the way to university. How these institutions are managed will determine the trajectory the virus takes.
Several countries have been forced to shut down schools, and while Kenya yesterday did not take that drastic step, all indications were that it was not off the cards. For instance, at least six US states have ordered schools to close in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, which has infected more than 1,660 people across the country.
In the days to come, attention will shift to places of worship, especially because the spread of the virus in Italy and South Korea has been attributed to poor public health measures in churches, mosques and temples.
Earlier this week Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church, announced that St Peter’s Basilica and Square will remain closed to tourists until April 3. The Philippines said one of the largest dioceses in the country was mulling the possibility of stopping “public gatherings” in its parishes if the situation worsens.
By last evening, none of the major religious denominations in the country had made any pronouncements regarding their calendars of worship events, even though Mr Kagwe’s invocation of the Public Health Act could automatically ban open-air crusades and religious rallies.
Poor access to hygiene information, mass panic and inadequate preparation by health authorities are some of the issues the government will be grappling with this weekend.
Further, whereas it has been established that most people develop symptoms of the disease between seven and 14 days after they start feeling sickly, some early studies on Covid-19 suggest people who have contracted the virus are emitting, or “shedding”, the infectious virus very early on – in fact sometimes even before they develop symptoms. As a result, they are able to unknowingly infect others before they know they are ill, which makes it much more difficult to break the transmission chain.
“We do know from shedding studies that people can shed in the pre-symptomatic phase,” Ms Maria Van Kerkhove, who heads the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, said in a recent interview. “It seems that people shed more in the early phases rather than the late phases of disease.”
This may be what happened with the first Kenyan case, as Mr Kagwe explained that airport screenings showed that she had no symptoms.
“This patient went through three airports before finally landing at JKIA. At all those points, she was screened, but none of these four airports picked up any abnormalities,” he said.
Kenya’s other worry as it grapples with the effects of this first case is that a new study has found that patients with the virus keep the pathogen in their respiratory tract for as long as 37 days, suggesting they could remain infectious for many weeks.
On Friday, the National Emergency Response Committee allayed public fears that more people may have already contracted the disease, saying everyone who had come into contact with the patient had been identified, “including those who were seated next to her” on the plane from London.
“We have been able to do so because she has been very forthcoming with information,” said Mr Kagwe, adding that the patient presented herself to KNH after noticing she had flu-like symptoms.
While the WHO recommends contact tracing of everyone a patient who tests positive for a contagious disease came into contact with, doctors find it hard to trace all. On flights, the WHO advises contact tracing for passengers seated two rows in front and behind the patient’s seat.
It has been two months since China announced the previously unknown virus had been identified as the cause of an outbreak in the city of Wuhan. In the weeks since then, the virus has raced around the globe, resulting in major outbreaks in Iran, South Korea, Italy and Japan.
Globally, the disease has infected about 125,048 people and killed 4,613. On the African continent, so far there have been confirmed cases in Egypt (67), Algeria (25), South Africa (17), Senegal (10), Tunisia (7), Morocco (6), Nigeria (2), Cameroon (2), Burkina Faso (2), Democratic Republic of the Congo (2), Cote d’Ivoire (1), Ghana (1), Togo (1), Ethiopia (1) and Gabon (1).
“These cases are a wake-up call for governments across Africa,” said Dr Rudi Eggers, WHO Country Representative to Kenya. “As indicated by the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, governments must do all they can to prepare for an eventual outbreak, and respond rapidly to contain and isolate these initial cases: time is critical now.”
In addition to barring public servants and the public against unnecessary travels to affected countries, the emergency response team yesterday suspended all public gatherings and events that have large gatherings.
Business owners have also been warned against inflating the cost of goods. “This is not the time to make abnormal profits,” Mr Kagwe warned.

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