• Two were transiting long-distance truck drivers from Busia while four arrived from Nairobi to attend a burial.
• Nyong'o has directed that all bodies from within the county shall be removed from mortuaries no later than 9.30am and buried within six hours of removal.
Six Covid-19 positive cases and one fatality have been reported in Kisumu county.
The six were all imported - two were transiting long-distance truck drivers from Busia border control, while four arrived from Nairobi.
Governor Anyang' Nyong’o said the four had attended three different funerals.
The deceased had been referred to a private Kisumu Central hospital from Migori. The 57-year-old man had Covid-19 symptoms, specifically difficulty in breathing, coughing, and fever. He died under management.
Nyong’o said four of the Nairobi arrivals are admitted to the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (JOOTRH) isolation centre. The rest are in Nairobi isolation centres.
“We have carried out 526 tests of which 73 per cent are males and 27 per cent females,” he said. Sixty-six contacts linked to the positive cases have been tested and quarantined.
The governor said the county’s health command centre at Sunset Hotel has been activated and health personnel deployed.
The health workers are managing patients at the isolation centre to minimise any risk to their families.
“We have also gone ahead and tested 66 healthcare workers who are in the frontline in dealing with Covid-19,” Nyong’o said.
He directed that all bodies brought from outside the county to or in transit must be accompanied by cause of death record certified by a government pathologist. They should not be accompanied by more than five persons.
The cause of death certificate shall be sent to the county director of Public Health before departure from the point of origin, he said.
People accompanying the bodies must be in possession of Covid-19 negative certificates issued at the point of origin.
The certificates must likewise be presented to the county director of Public Health before the commencement of journeys and written authority granted.
“Such bodies and accompanying parties shall be screened at the county border points of entry where the validity of the aforementioned documents shall be verified before being allowed to proceed to their destinations.”
The bodies transiting through Kisumu must be escorted by security and public health officers from the border of entry to the border of exit and shall not be allowed to make any stop-over in the county.
“All bodies from within the county shall be removed from mortuaries not later than 9.30am for internment and buried within six hours of removal,” Nyong’o directed.
He said no mortuary, either public or private, shall receive bodies from deaths occurring from outside their facilities unless they are police cases.
Mortuaries which ignore the directive will have their licences withdrawn and offending officers prosecuted under the Public Health Act.
The county has acquired four additional ICU enabled ambulances to improve surveillance, support contact tracing and to build on ambulatory services.
One of the ambulances will be stationed at the Covid-19 Response Call Centre at Maseno University to respond to the emerging issues reported through the call centre.
“I want to appeal to the people of Kisumu to continue observing the Covid-19 containment measures. Together, we shall prevail upon the enemy,” Nyong’o said.
- mwaniki fm