Lessons from HIV to guide post Covid-19 response as cases soar to 758

Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Dr Mercy Mwangangi addressing the media at Afya House in Nairobi during the updates on the coronavirus pandemic May 14, 2020. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The government yesterday reported 29 new cases of Covid-19 even as it seeks to borrow lessons from HIV/Aids pandemic response in reopening the country for business in the post-coronavirus era.

While 21 of these cases are Kenyans, eight are Tanzanian truck drivers who were tested before entering the country as part of the government’s new border protocol and consequently referred back to their country for isolation.

The number of Covid-19 infections has now soared to 758, with 42 deaths after two more patients succumbed and three more recoveries raising this number to 284.

Health Chief Administrative Secretary Mercy Mwangangi said these numbers show ‘success to a large extent’ in battling the disease, even as she acknowledged that the gains should be protected as the country plans to gradually open up.

Dr Mwangangi said while the curve is flattened, the virus is likely to be in the country for a long time as it is endemic, as revealed by the World Health Organisation.

She noted that a plan is being worked out by the government on how businesses will be opened up without compromising the gains.

Borrow lessons

Some lessons, she said, will be borrowed on how Kenya reacted to the HIV/Aids pandemic which ravaged the world in the late 80s and 90s.

“In the 1980s, we had HIV and it had afflicted our country and the globe, but we were soon able to learn how to mitigate this and how to live with it, and live positively and actually flourish and we shall do the same,” she said.

Both HIV and Covid-19 are caused by viruses, whose transmission is aided by body fluids, only that HIV is primarily transmitted through sexual intercourse.

Covid-19 is transmitted through surface or body contact with a person who is infected where the virus gets into the body via mucous membranes.

Mwangangi said it is imperative to maintain the current containment measures “even as we chart a way forward on how we will live with the virus”.

She added: “What we need is your cooperation in maintaining the set measures and adhering to handwashing, masking and physical distancing. Indeed all other countries are all on a journey plotting how the new normal will look like and Kenya is doing the same.”

“The government is monitoring the situation and will put in place the necessary intervention.

“The National Emergency Response Committee will escalate any measures required,” she said.