Health ministry, WHO train care providers on Ebola response

The ministry of Health has started training healthcare workers as part of Ebola mitigation preparedness in light of a possible outbreak in Kenya.

The training is being conducted in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and seeks to equip at least 1,400 caretakers with essential knowledge and techniques required to deal with the disease.

This comes barely a week after unions in the health sector raised concerns about Kenya's preparedness in handling the virus in case of any eventuality particularly in the 20 high-risk counties.

"Nothing is in place, no surveillance, no emergency team has been put in place. Let us prepare because there is nothing wrong in preparing but there is everything wrong if you don’t prepare yet we know that our neighbour’s house is burning,” George Gibore.

He is the the secretary general of the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO).

Gibore said healthcare workers were yet to sensitised on infection prevention and control measures such as case and sample management while communities have not been sensitised on how to identify an suspected Ebola case.

The induction has so far seen 75 healthcare workers drawn from the national level and Nairobi County receive training on preparedness and response in a training that targets 1,400 health workers.

The training will be cascaded to the county and subcounty levels in the 20 counties with the highest risk of infection.

The development comes as Uganda, the epicenter of the latest outbreak in East Africa, announced a rise in confirmed Ebola cases to 109 with 30 fatalities.

Kenya issued a threat alert and called on county administrations to remain vigilant and enhance surveillance especially at the border.

Counties at the borderline were also advised to activate rapid response teams to support identification of any suspected cases and make prompt reporting and screening of travelers, truck drivers and bush meat handlers.

Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Since then, the virus has been infecting people from time to time, leading to outbreaks in several African countries.

The virus spreads through direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals.

The Ebola virus then spreads to other people through direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person or a corpse of a person who succumbed to the virus. 

Signs of the disease include acute fever at the onset, red eyes and bleeding from body openings, measles-like rashes, sore throat, abdominal pains, vomiting, headache and diarrhea.