Cholera hits Nairobi Hospital, one worker dies

Hospital staff at Nairobi Hospital died and seven others were admitted following a cholera outbreak at the premier health facility in the Kenyan capital.

The eight employees work in the hospital's catering department and offer services at the staff canteen.

The hospital’s cafeteria was closed indefinitely as the management battled to contain the spread of the outbreak.

Colleagues at the hospital said the male worker died on Tuesday morning after "a short illness."

The hospital confirmed there were eight staff affected but denied there was an outbreak of the disease.

“There is an upsurge of cholera cases in the county of Nairobi. We have had several cases admitted to our hospital. Unfortunately, we had eight staff affected. There is no outbreak of cholera in the Nairobi Hospital,” said the management in a statement.

The statement added no patient was at risk and the management is monitoring the situation and all precautionary measures had been put in place.

The hospital, however, assures the public that no one within the facility is at risk at the are closely monitoring the situation.

“No patient is at risk and we are closely monitoring and all precautionary measures are in place”, said the Hospital.

Other officials said there were at least 23 cases of the water-borne disease that had been reported at the facility in April alone.

The Nairobi Hospital is a private facility and is the biggest regionally.

The incidents come barely a month after the Nairobi County Health Service warned residents of an outbreak of cholera in the city. This was after it emerged some sewage had mixed with water flowing through pipes to homes.

On March 21, County Director of Health Lucina Koyio said the outbreak was spreading rapidly in all sub-counties and asked al facilities in the city to reactivate their responses.