The Kisumu County today announced the 7th COVID-19, positive cases and one fatality in the County since the last zero situation report on the 22nd of May 2019.
During the media briefing earlier today, Governor Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o stated that the diseased was a 57 year old male symptomatic patient referred from Migori. All of the 7 cases are reported to have been imported in the county with two being transiting long distance truck drivers from Busia Border Control, while 4 of the cases were persons who traveled to Kisumu from Nairobi to attend three different funerals and 1 deceased.
The diseased presented with COVID-19 like symptoms and later was pronounced dead while under management. Currently contact tracing of 66 people linked to the positive cases have been identified and quarantined. The other four the governor said are admitted at the JOOTRH isolation center while the other two are in isolation centers in Nairobi.
The Governor also stated that the County is set to undertake stratified random sampling as away of establishing level of corona-virus infections in the County. Stratified random sampling is a method of sampling that involves the division of a population into smaller sub-groups known as strata. The sampling study will be done in conjunction with Maseno university.
So far, 526 tests have been carried out of which 73% are males and 27% females.
7 More Stringent Measures to Contain COVID-19
In the face of the positive cases in Kisumu, Governor Nyong’o today reiterated the various precautionary actions to prevent any further spread of the virus and in order to protect residents and other persons of concern from becoming infected with the virus.
These actions provides protective measures such as limiting travel, avoiding crowds, social distancing, thorough and frequent monitoring to slow down the development of new COVID-19 cases and reduce the risk of overwhelming the health care system.
The measures are in line with the COVID-19 preventive actions which include:
- All bodies being transported from outside the county to or through the county shall be accompanied by cause of death record certified by a government pathologist and shall be accompanied by NOT more than 5 persons. The cause of death certificate shall be sent to the County Director of Public Health before departure from point of origin.
- All persons accompanying such bodies MUST be in possession of Covid-19 negative Certificates issued at the point of origin which must be presented to the County Director of Public Health before commencement of such journeys and written authority granted.
- Such bodies and accompanying parties SHALL be screened at the county border points of entry where the validity of the aforementioned documents shall be verified before being allowed to proceed to their destinations.
- Bodies transiting through the County shall be escorted by a team of security and public health officers from the border of entry to the border of exit and SHALL NOT be allowed to make any stop-over within the county.
- All bodies from within the county SHALL be removed from mortuaries no later than 9.30 AM for internment and buried within 6 hours of removal.
- All deaths within the county SHALL be either buried or cremated within 48 hours of such deaths.
- No mortuary either public or private SHALL receive bodies from deaths occurring from outside their facilities unless it is a police case which MUST only be presented by the police. Mortuaries that deviate from this directive SHALL have their licenses withdrawn and offending officers prosecuted under the provisions of the Public Health Act.
Governor Nyong’o announcing latest update on COVID-19 during a media brief at the County headquarters