• India is also struggling to make enough vaccines for its citizens and has banned all exports.
• Willy Bett, Kenya’s High Commissioner in New Delhi, last Friday asked all Kenyans to register with the embassy.
Image: FILE
Health CS Mutahi Kagwe on Monday evening chaired a meeting to consider a ban on flights from India or order the quarantining of visitors from the country.
Experts warned that Kenya should do anything to stop the Covid-19 variant that has devastated India.
India is registering roughly 2,000 Covid-19 deaths per day, but testing hitches and persons dying outside hospitals mean the number is likely higher.
The surge is driven by what genome scientists call "double variant" of the novel coronavirus.
“This is what we’re trying to stop from getting to Kenya,” an official who attended the meeting told the Star.
Kenya has close ties with India. Between January and October last year, 25,251 people arrived in Kenya from India, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.
At least 10,000 Kenyans also travel to India for treatment every year.
Willy Bett, Kenya’s High Commissioner in New Delhi, last Friday asked all Kenyans to register with the embassy. They were to provide names, passport numbers, contacts and purpose of visit to India.
“It is important for the High Commission to update its register of all Kenyan citizens living in India for accountability and decision-making purposes. Kenyans in this region are further advised to form WhatsApp groups and intimate such groups to the mission to ease communication in case such need arises,” Bett said.
India is also struggling to make enough vaccines for its citizens and has banned all exports.
The United States said it would send raw materials for Covid-19 vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear to help India respond to the massive surge.
"Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need," US President Joe Biden said on Twitter after the White House announced measures.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said officials were "working round the clock" to deploy available resources and supplies to help India manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine. The United States will also send therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits and ventilators.
Washington was under mounting pressure to help India after Britain, France and Germany pledged aid at the weekend.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged all citizens to exercise caution and be vaccinated. This came as the country set a global record for new Covid-19 cases in a single day.
The United States was also pursuing options to provide India with oxygen generation and related supplies, Horne said.
(edited by o. owino)
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