In June, Jeff Koinange warned Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale on Jeff Koinange Live that Ebola was coming. On Sunday Live, Duale was back on the couch, and this time Kenya had confirmed two deaths and 118 people in quarantine. "I warned you, man," Jeff began. "I told you it was coming."
Duale walked through how the first case reached the country. By his account, a 45-year-old Kenyan travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo through Kisangani and Beni, crossed into Uganda and flew into Nairobi on a Jambojet flight. Strong painkillers, he said, can mask a fever at airport screening, and travel forms can be falsified. The man went straight to a hospital emergency department, where a doctor flagged him within about two hours. He later died.
Seven people who tested positive are now in isolation at Kenyatta National Hospital, four health workers and three family members, and Duale said all were clinically stable. The 118 in quarantine include relatives, health workers, the flight's crew and passengers, immigration and customs officers, and the cleaners who serviced the aircraft. Kenya had traced 100% of contacts against a global standard of 85%, he said, and those in quarantine are tested every 48 hours through the 21-day incubation window.
Jeff pressed him on health workers' complaints about protective gear. Duale insisted there is plenty in 26 high-risk counties, four referral hospitals and five quarantine centres, and said the real complaint, about representation on the national task force, had been resolved. More than 4,900 health workers had been trained, he said, with five testing labs, two of them mobile. He declined to discuss the Laikipia facility, which is before the courts, and thanked the US CDC and WHO for their support.
The conversation ranged well beyond Ebola. On the Eastleigh building collapse, Duale blamed corruption and called for courts to hand out far heavier penalties. He defended his "hyena" remark as a Somali idiom. And on election results, he was adamant that live streaming from polling stations, under section 39 of the Elections Act, remains in place, accusing the opposition and parts of the media of not reading the law.
On one point, at least, host and guest agreed. "Let's not play around with Ebola," Duale said.
Continue with Part 2 on Citizen TV.
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