- Governors from the North Rift have expressed concern over the increasing Covid-19 cases in the region.
- Many truck drivers had diverted to the Nadapal border point in Turkana county to avoid the snarl-up at Malaba border.
The government has deployed a team of 16 additional staff to help speed up testing of truck drivers at the Malaba border point.
A snarl-up of trucks along the Eldoret-Bungoma-Malaba highway is blamed for increasing the spread of Covid-19 in the region.
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital CEO Wilson Aruasa said the team of experts will work with Busia county officials to speed up the testing and clearance of drivers.
“We hope to ease the pressure caused by the truck drivers within the next few days so that we have normal flow of traffic and we also deal with transmission of the virus,” Aruasa said. The Ministry of Health has also deployed another team from Nairobi.
The snarl-up from Malaba to Bungoma was more than 80km long.
The heavy traffic from Malaba to Bungoma was caused after some of the drivers from Kenya staged a protest, claiming they were being mistreated in Uganda and that one of them had been killed.
Governors from the North Rift led by Jackson Mandago of Uasin Gishu have expressed concern over the increasing Covid-19 cases in the region as a result of contact with the truck drivers.
The governors said many truck drivers had diverted to the Nadapal border point in Turkana county to avoid the snarl-up at Malaba border and enter the country without Covid-19 testing.
“The county government of Turkana has moved to the Nadapal border point to collect samples from the drivers for testing," the governors said in a statement.
Mandago, however, said they wanted the government to set up a testing centre in Turkana to avoid the long distance of moving the samples to MTRH in Eldoret for testing.
Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Bungoma and Busia have recorded increased cases of Covid-19 in the last one week
Another sample collection centre has been set up for drivers at Huruma in Eldoret but residents have protested and want it relocated, accusing the drivers of spreading the virus in the town.
Meanwhile the Red Cross has constructed quarantine facilities at four major prisons in the North Rift to help in control of spread of Covod-19 among inmates.
The quarantine facilities have been established at Eldoret, Ngeria, Kitale and Kapenguria prisons which have the highest number of inmates in the region.
Edited by Henry Makori