Politics, PR and public health knock heads over cholera outbreak at Weston hotel

If you thought the government had come out clear on the state of health experts who attended a conference that ended on Friday at Weston hotel, you could be surprised with how public relations, politics and public health could knock heads in a tight triad muscle flexing rivalry.

Weston Hotel is linked to DP William Ruto and the linkage could be dragging PR and politics to suffocation of the expected efforts to contain the deadly Cholera realized at the hotel.

One Jack Kioko, the Director of Medical Services has not given a reliable report on the outbreak, he claims not having obtained “comprehensive” laboratory results on the disease that broke out after when the conference guests took lunch at the hotel last week.

Whether it is the lab techs who could not obtain comprehensive results of tests done on the patients or the government finding it difficult to comprehend we do not know.

11 out of more than 30 patients who had been rushed to hospitals after taking lunch at the conference that last week were found to have contracted the deadly disease and the Private hospitals confirmed.

What PR and politics cannot overrun in public health is that severe diarrhoea and vomiting which the attendants of the conference complained of, remain the major symptoms of the disease.

As the Ministry of Health toned down the matter, saying it was gastroenteritis by Friday, 33 cases of cholera had were definite at the Nairobi Hospital alone.

Gastroenteritis is defined as a common food-borne disease characterized with inflammation of the mucous membranes of the stomach and intestines, at least according to the English Dictionary.

Ministry of Health officials seem to be trying to de-emphasize the outbreak instead containing the killer disease.

Even the Amref Health Africa CEO Dr Githinji Gitahi, has been quoted by the local media having confirmed that three of his staff who had attended the conference at Weston were sick.

What do we take! Politics, PR or Public Health?

Even the opposition leaders while speaking in Vihiga County took it as an opportunity to tare apart the Deputy President.

It is now a talk in the rallies.