Health CAS Dr Mercy Mwangangi has urged Kenyans to keep the Covid-19 containment measures and that a way forward to living with the Covid-19 will have to be found since the Coronavirus may be around for some time. This comes even as a World Health Organization (WHO) official said the disease may not be exterminated anytime soon, as some may think.
CAS Mwangangi said Kenya has to find a way of resuming businesses and maintaining continuity while ensuring we have social and physical distancing measures, “Different countries are putting in place interventions as to how they can continue with a new normal because it can’t be back to the old ways,” she said. She cited the surge in HIV/AIDS cases in Kenya back in the 1980s and 1990s and how ways of managing its spread and medical interventions to ensure the health of those infected had to be made, and normal life wasn’t hampered.
On the strike notice issued by healthworkers, she said the government is in talks with the health workers to avert the strike, slated for Monday. “Healthcare workers are the heartbeat of this response…. We are in discussions with them to evaluate their concerns and to be able to come to a middle ground where we can actually move forward,” she said. Health workers have cited poor working conditions as one of the reasons behind their planned strike and the CAS confirmed one of the issues being addressed is on PPEs.