Youth and Covid19 Response [Clinton Ndege]

Word from the  Youths on Covid 19 

With the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases nationally now at 355 it is so clear that there is need for more stringent measures to be taken in order to prevent the situation from getting out of hands.I personally applaud the president’s decision to extend the already in existence dusk to dawn  curfew for another 21 days and also extending the travel ban in and out of Nairobi metropolitan region and the coastal counties of Kwale, Kilifi and Mombasa.

Despite these preventive measures already being in place, still plenty need to be done by the government if her intentions are to win the fight against this pandemic. Since the government had initially directed Kenyan youths to be on the forefront in this fight, majority of Kenyan youths  out of patriotism heeded to this call including me and some other members of Pwani Youth Network.

For slightly more than a month now we have chipped in to help the already existing health workers at the Mikindani Health Center with the little training we have had as far as public health is concerned. Basically in this health facility we have been creating awareness about Covid-19 to patients who   come to seek  services. We also check the temperatures for each and every individual getting into the health facility and take them through proper hand washing skills, how to correctly put on face masks and how to safely dispose the face masks.

Unfortunately, for the last two weeks there has been completely no supply of surgical masks at the Mikindani Health Center and you can only imagine the risk health workers are being exposed to at this facility. Mikindani Health Center is the only county government run health facility offering services to residents of Mikindani ward. This ward comprises of

Kibarani, Bahati, Birikani, Bangladesh, Mikindani, Ganahola and Jomvu Aldina. For instance on average the facility attends to 350 patients per day and all of these patients will eventually get to see the doctor who has no surgical mask. In case one of these patients has Covid-19, chances are very high that the remaining 349 patients, the doctor and other health workers within the facility are going to leave the facility infected with the corona virus and before we even realize it, we are going to have a crisis we all are not ready for.

As things stand currently, Mombasa county already has a higher infection rate compared to that of the entire country and with 67% of the already confirmed Covid-19 cases being of patients who are asymptomatic. It is because of this statistic that both the county and national government need to ensure that all health facilities are adequately equipped and that no facility should be running without essential PPEs such as gloves and surgical masks in order to carter for each and every health worker.

Since we are now experiencing local transmission unlike in the beginning where the positive cases we were recording as a country were of those patients with a recent travel history, it is evident that the disease is already at the community level. I am therefore appealing to the government through the Mi nistry of Health to train health workers right from the grassroots on how to conduct testing for Covid-19.

For the period I have volunteered at the Mikindani Health Center I have often encountered scenarios where patients feel like they have been exposed and voluntarily come to the health facility for testing. Unfortunately, since there are no Covid-19 testing kits at the grassroots facilities, the best I can do is to check the patients temperature and ask them to go back home and self quarantine for a period of 14 days again something that I am not sure if is done. It even gets more risky if these patients happen to be positive but asymptomatic since the patient is likely to assume that they are negative at the end of the 14 day period hence risking the health family members they live with, friends and people they interact with on a daily basis.

Finally, let me thank each and every individual doing the best they can to win this fight against Covid-19. Let each and everyone of us play their role in this fight we can’t leave it all for the government. We all have a role to play. Let us wash our hands regularly with soap and running water or use an alcohol based hand sanitizer, stay at home and when we have to leave home let us not forget putting on face masks and maintaining social distance. If we do all these we are going to flatten the Covid-19 curve and eventually win the fight against this pandemic. IT ALL STARTS WITH YOU.

Write by Clinton Ndege