Anxiety and panic has rocked the government and particularly the Ministry of Health after one of those who work at the COVID-19 response centre tested positive for coronavirus last week.
The staff whose identity remains private tested positive after the Ministry of Health conducted tests on the personnel at the response centre last week.
While the rest of the staff tested negative, the ministry in following protocol has sent the staff into mandatory quarantine in a hotel at Nairobi’s Upperhill area from Saturday, April 11.
The staff will continue to respond to the corona virus epidemic while in isolation from his family.
However, it is believed that the individual may not have infected his colleagues at the response centre as he hasn’t been going to work frequently. It is said he has only been to the centre thrice in the last 3 weeks.
The ministry is hoping that his less contact with colleagues would save the centre from collapsing.
Sources, however, revealed that the individual was only been in close contact with one colleague and that he never interacted with the others.
Tracing of his movements outside work and contacts including family is already on going
The COVID-19 response centre established by the Ministry of Health deals directly with the ongoing corona virus epidemic.
The centre is a call centre responding to calls from citizens. It also deals with tracing of contacts, testing, compilation of data and monitoring the epidemic.
This response centre is at the heart of the government’s management of the epidemic. It is from this centre that the Health CS collects the data he shares with the country everyday in his daily briefings.
It is also this centre that informs most government decisions in response to Covid-19 as it has all the data related to the epidemic.
The staff at the response centre include volunteers, members of NGOs, staff of the ministry of health as well as epidemiologists.
The staff are divided into two major divisions, those dealing with correspondence and field officers.
