- He said counties still have no capacity to conduct mass testing without support from the national government.
- So far nine counties have raised about Sh1 billion to support food initiative.
Image: MAURICE ALAL
County governments have raised Sh6.1 billion for the fight against Covid-19.
Council of Governors chairman Wycliffe Oparanya said the counties have slashed their travel and development budgets.
The counties will have to find alternative sources of revenue to fund the affected budget.
“We are not supposed to have deficit financing. Our budget always balances. We have only postponed projects affected to the next financial year,” Oparanya said.
He spoke in Kisumu on Wednesday.
Oparanya said counties still have no capacity to conduct mass testing without support from the national government. He said there is need to carry out mass testing to establish the spread of the disease.
“We do not know the exact number of the infected people and counties in Nyanza and Western, for example, have to [send samples] to Kisumu or Eldoret for testing,” Oparanya said.
He asked Health CS Mutahi Kagwe to ensure that counties are supplied with testing kits.
The Kakamega governor said 46 county governments have reported on the status of active quarantine facilities. He said 1,789 people are under quarantine in his county.
Oparanya said 2,436 people who were confined in public quarantine facilities were discharged after they tested negative.
“This is good news for the county governments. We encourage citizens to practise self-quarantine, especially when they suspect they have come in contact with an infected person,” he said.
Oparanya said they are treating medical waste management with urgency to avoid possible secondary impact of Covid-19.
“Counties have made arrangements for proper medical waste disposal which include; disaggregation, decontamination, autoclaving, and incineration,” he said.
Oparanya said they have identified 1.9 million households that need food because their sources of income were affected by Covid-19 control measures.
Out of these, counties have prioritised 742, 038 for aid through cash transfer, e-voucher, and physical distribution.
He said so far nine counties have raised about Sh1 billion to support this initiative.
“We appreciate the support offered by the national government to 250,000 households in 10 counties but call upon them to extend the programme to all the 47 counties,” Oparanya said.
He said county governments have invested in the implementation of control measures including re-allocation of resources to strengthen the healthcare system.
However, the shift of focus to Covid-19 has affected the uptake of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health services, Oparanya said.
“We performed well in January and March but there is a notable drop across the counties for the month of April as follows; antenatal care dropped by 39 per cent, delivery through skilled birth attendants 32 per cent, immunisation for under one year 34 per cent and a drop in uptake of family planning services by 25 per cent,” he said.
The governor said they have ensured that other health services are not interrupted and patients are well protected from Covid-19 infection.
Oparanya said civil servants are currently not covered by the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
He said this will force them to pay out of pocket for expenses that arise out of contracting Covid-19 and other diseases.
He urged the NHIF to speed up the signing of agreements with county governments to ensure that civil servants, including medical personnel are insured.
Edited by Frank Obonyo