Thirty-two people who were in mandatory quarantine at a facility in Elwak in Mandera county have escaped under unclear circumstances.
The 32 were out of 66 passengers placed in quarantine after travelling from Nairobi last Wednesday.
The bus was intercepted by officers on its arrival at around 8pm against the directive by President Uhuru Kenyatta that there should be no movement from or into Nairobi.
The directive had been issued on Monday, April 6.
The driver of the bus from Makka bus company was arrested for transporting passengers from Nairobi in contravention of President’s directive, and all the passengers expected to be quarantined for 14 days at their own expense.
The driver is expected to be charged.
The police have been accused of allowing the 32 to escape. This was revealed in a letter addressed to Mandera South deputy county commissioner Abdihakim Dubat written by Health Executive Ahmed Sheikh.
“I write to register our displeasure with the manner in which 32 people out of 66 passengers disappeared from quarantine facilities under the watch of police officers,” the letter reads.
Sheikh has termed the move as not only unprocedural but also a great risk to the public.
“It appears a few elements within the security system are yet to understand the seriousness of this campaign against coronavirus,” the letter reads.
The county government has accused the bus company of continuing to defy directives and is considering involving the intervention of NTSA.
This comes even as authorities raised concern over increasing positive cases in rural counties, among them Mandera, which as of Monday had six confirmed cases.
Governor Mohammed Kuti while speaking during the briefing said Nairobi was initially the epicentre of the disease and followed the advice of government hence the turnaround in the number.
He noted that there are a lot of challenges in terms of behavior change in the counties especially the rural counties adding that even though the closure of churches and mosques has helped a lot the people in open markets and supermarkets in rural areas people are not very serious.
“And since we are now starting to see cases appearing in the counties our worry now is actually these counties. Slowly Machakos and the rest are also starting to have. People in the rural counties are still thinking that this is a foreign matter that has come to Nairobi and is still far from us the behavior in rural counties is very worrying and the disease is now slowly moving in that direction.”
On Monday, Mandera Governor Ali Roba had raised concern on the continued travel between Nairobi and Mandera.
“Despite the ban on travel to and from Nairobi, we are reliably informed that unscrupulous transporters have positioned themselves in strategic places outside Nairobi and still embark on travel to Mandera,” Roba said.
The initial two cases in the county were imported by people who had travelled from Mombasa, a county that has been mapped by the Ministry of Health as high risk.
The additional four cases reported on Thursday were from the quarantine facilities.
Roba instead urged residents to stay home, maintain social distance, wash hands regularly, avoid touching their faces, maintain a good level of hygiene and wear masks in public areas if they must go out.
“Avoid leaving your home towns, villages and centers during this period.”
