Travellers without yellow fever certificates stranded at Busia border

The Kenyan Government has directed that visitors from Uganda and Angola must adhere to the yellow fever immunisation protocol. (Photo: File/Standard)

Hundreds of travellers are stranded at the Busia border point following a directive that all visitors must produce a yellow fever immunisation certificate before they are allowed into the country.

Kenyans returning home were not spared.

The Government had directed that visitors from Uganda and Angola must adhere to the yellow fever immunisation protocol.

“We have been here with children since early morning. We have no fare back to our homes as the buses dumped us and left,” said Mary Atieno.

Officials at the border told the travellers that they should have been immunised 10 days before they embarked on the journey. This is to allow enough time for the body to develop immunity.

Those without the document were forced to return to their respective countries.

The stranded passengers included children who arrived at the border as early as 3am and were not aware about the government directive.

“No one told us to have the certificate only to reach here and get stranded because we could not produce the document yet no one alerted us when we were boarding the bus,” said Peter Monari.

2,000 infected

The Ministry of Health had directed that any Kenyan coming into the country from Uganda or Angola without a valid yellow fever certificate would be quarantined.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the yellow fever outbreak in Angola poses a threat to the entire world.

Nearly 2,000 people are believed to be suffering from yellow fever in Angola since the outbreak was reported in December. People travelling from Angola have already exported the virus to China, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

WHO has warned that Uganda, DRC and Angola have active yellow fever outbreaks.

Wednesday, public health officers at the border said the yellow fever vaccine had run out but they had requested for more from Kisumu.

Bus operators blamed the Government for not issuing the directive early as this had affected their clients.

Created conflict

“They could have notified us by Tuesday before we set off from Kigali but the directive was issued at night. They have just created conflict between us and the passengers who are now blaming us,” lamented David Okoch, a Simba Coach driver.

Some of the bus companies have arranged for their client’s transport back to their countries of origin.

However, Busia Public Health Officer Ambose Fwamba said the directive on the yellow fever immunisation protocol was issued on April 18.

The Standard has established that some of the travellers are taking advantage of the porous border to sneak in and out of the country.