In Summary
At least 30 people have died of malaria in Kenya's Marsabit and Baringo counties in the past week.
Seventeen
of them — mostly adults below 40 years and children — were from four
wards, Dukana, North Horr, Illeret and Loiyangalani, in the northern
Marsabit county, while 13 were from Tiaty in Baringo in the Rift Valley.
In
Baringo, four more people died at the Chemolingot sub-county hospital
in Tiaty constituency Wednesday, bringing the death toll from the
disease to 13 in the past week.
Tiaty sub-county health services co-ordinator Joseph Nakopir said the four died while they were being treated.
“We
have received more than 80 malaria patients since Monday. Unfortunately
four died at the facility while undergoing treatment,” said Mr Nakopir,
adding that the hospital was faced with an acute shortage of blood.
In
Marsabit, the Kenya Red Cross regional coordinator Talaso Chucho said
most of those affected were herders who have been grazing their animals
in forests far away from health facilities.
Overwhelmed
“The
situation is dire and as much as we are here to help, it will take some
time to control the disease. We have distributed mosquito nets, malaria
drugs and sent six nurses to the most affected area,” he said.
Mr
Nakopir said his staff were overwhelmed by the high number of patients
following the departure of their colleagues early this year due to
rampant insecurity in the region.
“Early
this year when the government mapped out some regions as dangerous,
most of the medics from other communities fled, while other development
partners withdrew completely,” he said.
At Chemolingot Sub-County hospital on Tuesday, a Nation
team witnessed a two-year-old boy who had been referred from Akwichatis
area being resuscitated after suffering a severe malaria attack.
Records at the outpatients department revealed that eight out of every
10 patients treated at the hospital, most of whom are children, had
tested positive for malaria.
The situation has been compounded by the lack of ambulances to ferry patients from far-flung parts of the county.
Ambulances
The only four ambulances in the sub-county were grounded due to lack of fuel.
Baringo
County chief officer Richard Koech said they had dispatched medics to
the affected areas, adding: “It is true some of the ambulances had no
fuel but we have refuelled and deployed them to the affected areas. We
have also dispatched medics to the affected areas and we are also
appealing to religious organisations to assist us in improving services
in the region.”
He said that agencies such as the Red
Cross and World Vision had been on hand to ferry drugs and medics to the
worst hit areas of Kongor, Chesawach, Kapau, Nasorot, Akwichatis and
Kapau. On Wednesday, Ministry of Health officials attributed the
situation to the rainy season.
Medical
Services director Jackson Kioko said the cases “have not reached the
public health threshold for classification as an outbreak”.
Delayed treatment
“What
we are seeing are severe cases of malaria resulting from delayed
treatment, caused by the ongoing nurses’ strike and lack of medicines in
counties like Marsabit,” explained Dr Kioko.
Explaining
the upsurge in cases, head of Malaria Control Unit Dr Waqo Ejersa said
the affected communities had not experienced malaria outbreaks for a
long time and had thus developed low immunity to the disease.
“When
this happens, the cases can shoot up,” he said while visiting Marsabit
where he announced that 4,000 test kits and 24,000 anti-malaria drugs
will be distributed to the three counties.
Dr Kioko said Marsabit lacked adequate supply of anti-malaria medicines and was, therefore, unable to cope with an outbreak.
The
Health Ministry, through the Malaria Control Unit and Kenya Medical
Research Institute, yesterday sent experts to test blood samples from
patients to check if there were any other underlying illnesses.
Reported by Irene Mwendwa, Florah Koech and Elizabeth Merab
No comments :
Post a Comment