Kenya reported its first positive coronavirus case on Friday setting stage to peddling fake health advise and cartels smuggling fake testing kits for the deadly virus. The announcement by the Health CS Mutahi Kagwe came in the same week blood shortage was reported in Kenyan hospitals.
Kenya National Blood Transfusion Services official have allegedly been accused of siphoning blood donated by good Kenyans and selling to other countries in Africa including Somalia. Before the dust would settle, Kenya reported two more positive cases of coronavirus pushing the government to shut down schools, ban all sorts of gatherings and advice people to work from home.
What follows the next day is streets filled with fake coronavirus testing kits. Police in Nairobi have since arrested upto ten people who worked in a street corner clinic that was selling the fake kits at Ksh. 3000.
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The ten employees of the Avane Cosmetic Dermatology Clinic and Medical Spa in Nairobi were arrested during a multi-agency raid after their advertisement about selling kits went viral on social media. In that advertisement, they purported that they are offering old coronavirus testing kits at sh600 for one with a till number provided for vulnerable kenyans to channel payments.
The advert also read that only 400 pieces were left from 1,000 unit stock to further lure unsuspecting Kenyans.
The suspects recorded their statements at the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dental Council (KMPDC) offices as the investigating officers tried to establish the details of the advertisement.
KMPD’s Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yumbwa said that they want to establish the buyers of the 600 pieces that the facility had sold.
“They claim that they are left with 400. We want to know to whom the other 600 were sold,” Mr. Yumbwa said.
The spa did noy distance itself from advertisement but claimed that it when they are in the process making an order of the said kits,
Even before Kenya publicly announced its first coranvirus case, government had banned all local manufacturers from selling their products as masks abroad as a measure of preparedness. It is therefor irresponsible to allow fake kits and material that they public may need to preventing the virus to penetrate in the market.
The swoop by the multi agency team deliberately failed to recover any kits that the tens suspects are accused of selling.
The fake clinic claimed that all tests for the virus yield results in 15 minutes and therefore conducting their tests needno specialised training. The state has however trained medical workers expected to handle coronavirus-related cases.
KMPDC said that the street facility had no license to provide medical attention to infected patients as it claimed in the advertisement.
The raid that was led by the KMPDC but also incorporated officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Kenya Pharmacist and Poisons Board (KPPB) and the Kenya Medical Laboratory Technicians and Technologist Board came barely 24 hours after President Uhuru Kenyatta warned the public against spreading false news about the virus.
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Mr .Yuma remained alarmed by the advertisement since the KPPB had not sanctioned the sale of such kits but only warned the public against being duped by such publications.
“Any test related to the Covid-19 is conducted at the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Anyone who wants to sell the kits must seek a license from the pharmacy and poisons board and so far, no license has been issued,” he stressed.
Officers from the KPPB called on the public to remain very vigilant and keen when purchasing medical supplies now that unscrupulous businessmen are out to trade with Kenyan lives.
Drug samples were taken and will be tested to confirm authenticity. The raid is part of a larger crackdown targeting quarks selling unauthorised health materials and also claiming to provide testing services for the pandemic that is now global.
