14 cholera cases confirmed in Nairobi

Fourteen cholera patients have been admitted in various city hospitals, the Nairobi county government has announced.

This follows an alert issued last week by the county health department warning of a possible cholera outbreak and urging residents to take preventive measures to avoid contracting cholera.

The county chief health officer, Washington Makodingo said some of the patients have been treated and discharged.

“We urge the public to treat their water, cook and wash food properly and wash their hands to avoid cases of cholera especially now that there is a water shortage,” said Makodingo.

The chief officer who had appeared before the health committee said that Pumwani Hospital last week recorded six cases of cholera. One patient came from Ruai, the other from Eastleigh, two from Imara Daima and two from Embakasi.

“Once the patients were admitted the doctors proceeded to do tests to determine whether the patients were susceptible to cholera and all of them tested positive.  We however isolated the patients and started to treat them immediately. On the next day we had an additional two but as of right now all of them have been discharged apart from two,” stated Makodingo.

He also said that two other patients were admitted at Matter hospital on Wednesday last week and that they had come from Imara Daima.

Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) also received 3 suspected cases of cholera but the patients were not residents of Nairobi.

Two of the patients were from Machakos and one from Muranga. Additionally, Nairobi hospital and Getrude’s hospital each recorded one case of cholera.

Containing outbreak

The county health department, however, said that it had taken measures to curb the outbreak of the disease such as issuance of chlorine tablets in areas where cholera has been reported and issuance of antibiotics to lessen the burden of cholera to those who may contact it.

So far the county has distributed 50,000 tablets.

“We have also taken measures such as doing contact tracing and given the pattern that we are seeing, it seems the outbreak is coming from Mlolongo. However, the cases we have received are very isolated so you cannot say that there is a county wide outbreak,” said Makodingo.

Adding, “We are also conducting Inspection of food joints which is among the primary sources of cholera.”

He further said that the county is liaising with Nairobi water Company to super-chlorinate its water to be able to deal with cholera. It has also established cholera treatment units across all health facilities and urged doctors to be on standby in case there is a widespread outbreak.

The Peter Warutere-led committee said the cases in Embakasi could be caused by a leakage in water pipes that has led to the supply of contaminated water to area residents.

The committee observed that most of the residents in the area had been receiving sewerage water and Nairobi Water Company was yet to address the situation despite numerous complaints.

Last week, the Nairobi County health department issued an alert of a possible cholera outbreak.

Nairobi County Health Director Dr Lucia Koyio said the alert was informed by a case of cholera confirmed on Wednesday.

Koyio asked all referral facilities in the county to reactivate their cholera treatment protocol to prevent the spread of the disease. She further directed that all hospitals in the county-both referral and sub county facilities- to treat every suspected incident of the disease as a cholera case.