Police have arrested a coronavirus suspect who had been on the run and sent him to isolation ward at Kauwi Level 4 Hospital in Kitui.
The 26-year-old man had visited the level 4 hospital on Sunday and was advised to return on Monday for a check-up after displaying coronavirus-like symptoms, Kyuso sub-county police commander Charles Machinji said on Wednesday.
Machinji said that instead of returning to the hospital, the man travelled to Ngomeni trading centre where he and a woman hid in a lodging.
Somehow, the public got to know about him and that he was hiding in lodging. They threatened to storm the hideout and lynch him, but the police saved him.
“The members of the public were regrouping and planning to storm the lodge when the police officers were called in,” the police chief said.
Governor Charity Ngilu told the media on Tuesday night that reports about the suspect started doing the rounds in Ngomeni on Tuesday morning.
“A suspected case was reported in Ngomeni. The patient has been transferred to the county isolation centre at Kauwi Hospital,” she said.
Ngilu said samples from the patient were sent to the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi for testing.
She said that none of the four suspects isolated at the hospital has tested positive.
The four had before they were quarantined exhibited Covid-19-like symptoms but they tested negative, the governor said.
Edited by R.Wamochie
