Kisumu County gov't now says it has contained the Cholera outbreak

The Kisumu County Department of Health now says it has managed to contain the spread of Cholera in the lakeside city with no new admissions recorded in the last 48 hours.

Health CEC Dr. Gregory Ganda said the mitigation measures employed in the wake of the outbreak that saw two lives lost have been successful.

Dr. Ganda said the county managed to identify and treat 16 water points in Nyalenda slums, the epicenter of the outbreak, which is suspected to have been the main cause of the pandemic.

He said that despite the current situation, they’re still on high alert, adding that the public must continue observing personal hygiene, especially in the usage of water for cooking and drinking.

The CEC added that they’re still monitoring the progress of the diarrhea cases reported in various health facilities adding that inspection of eateries too is ongoing by a team from the public health.

“We’ve been able to contain the number of cases. Today we only had two cases that were suspected, they were treated and allowed to go home. The other day we only had one case who has also gone home. As at now we think that we’ve been able to contain the situation, but we’ll monitor as time goes by to see if there will be any new cases,” he told Citizen Digital.

“Over the last 48 hours we’ve not had a remission; in fact we’ve discharged all our patients, meaning there are no severe cases occurring in the community. In the last two days also there has only been one case admitted in a private hospital, who was also treated and allowed to go home. We will not relax the measures because people move.”

On the ongoing healthcare workers’ strike, Dr. Ganda said they’re still out of their duty stations as a result of the industrial action, but that the county has put in measures to ensure that health needs are met regardless.

Dr. Ganda said the county received a disbursement from the National Treasury on Thursday this week and that they expect to settle the salaries of county workers including the medics next week.

“Fortunately, we got our allocation from Nairobi on Thursday, it entered into the bank accounts in the evening, so we’re expecting the health workers to be paid sometime next week. So for now we’re able to run our emergency services,” stated the Health boss.