Deadly coronavirus leaves firms trembling with shock

While Kenya has not recorded a single case of the dreaded coronavirus that causes Covid-19, businesses are already lamenting losses due to cancellations of major conferences.

Tourists who may have been planning to visit the country will find it difficult due to suspension of flights.

Small and medium-sized companies that import goods from China are staring at near-empty shelves with production coming to a near standstill in the Asian giant.

Traders from Nairobi’s central business district and the popular Gikomba market whose source of cargo is China are feeling the pinch of the virus with many staring at major losses.

FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS

Kenya’s travel industry says its earnings have dropped by Sh3 billion — which is equivalent to six per cent of last year’s revenue — as holidaymakers cancel their plans on health jitters.

The Kenya Association of Travel Agents (Kata) chairperson Mohammed Wanyoike said if hotel and flight cancellations persist, the loss could hit 10 per cent of last year’s revenue of Sh51 billion by the end of this month.

He said last week that they reached the estimate by computing the amount they earn at this time against the confirmed cancellations.

Visits aside, conferences that would earn the country foreign revenue through hotel bookings and licence fees have also affected businesses in Kenya.

The four-day Next Einstein Forum that was to start today at Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) had listed President Kenyatta and his Rwandese counterpart Paul Kagame as speakers. The meeting was cancelled last Wednesday.

In a statement to Smart Company, Ms Nathalie Munyapenda, the managing director of Next Einstein Forum, said “the safety and health of delegates and a wider public are our highest concern.”
She said new dates will be announced “in the coming weeks”, but it is clear that this cancellation is going to cost Kenya dearly: there were over 100 confirmed speakers comprising academics, directors of globally acclaimed research institutes, policymakers as well as researchers.

DEADLY VIRUS

More than 2,000 delegates from across the world were also expected. The loss is close to Sh800 million for Kenya in hotel bookings and other logistics, a forum team member shared.
The 2020 Kenya Open Golf tournament that was also to be hosted in Nairobi was called off last week.

The cancellations come as four Covid-19 cases are confirmed in Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Algeria, which together have 23 ascertained cases of the virus from 455 suspected to have contracted the deadly virus.

Covid-19 was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in December 2019, but has since moved from the epicentre of the outbreak to more than 30 countries.

As of last Wednesday, WHO reported that there have been 93,164 cases worldwide and 3,199 deaths. All of the cases in Africa were imported, mostly from Europe.

The Nigerian case came from Milan, while the case in Senegal came from London.

Preliminary economic data analysed by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) headquartered in Geneva, shows that activities leading to containing the virus in China have already caused a “substantial decline in output”.

Ms Pamela Coke-Hamilton, who heads Unctad’s Division on International Trade and Commodities, said the worst hit are expected to be the European Union ($15.5 billion), the United States ($5.8 billion) and Japan ($5.2 billion).

It certainly does not help that China by its sheer size plays a major role as an engine of global economic growth and a dominant player in commodity markets. What has hit it will have significant ramifications all over the world: oil prices have plummeted as China’s growth prospects weaken and international travel now wobbling.

FEAR
The biggest concern, and perhaps what is fanning the fear in people to make these drastic adjustments is not cases imported from China.

It is secondary and community transmissions. These are, according to WHO, cases with no clear epidemiological link such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed case.
Scope of surveillance.

Scientists are arguing that restricting visits will not stop the spread of the killer coronavirus since it has moved to other countries, but they are also cautioning against secondary transmissions.

Rodney Adam, Professor of Pathology and Medicine at the Aga Khan University Hospital said it’s “unlikely that travel restrictions will prevent the infection from coming to other parts of the world.”

Prof Adam and his colleagues have urged the government to widen its scope of surveillance not only on China, but on other countries and spaces where community transmission — the type that occurs without any air travel contact with China — takes place.

He said Kenya needs to worry about “secondary transmission” where infected patients go to other countries and the number of people they are likely to infect.

He wrote to Smart Company: “[T]he big question is how much secondary transmission there will be; that is, when infected patients go to other countries, how many people will they infect?”
More than 60 nations have suspended flights to China. The aviation industry through the International Air Transport Association (Iata) has already projected a loss in revenue of about $29 billion this year.

In Kenya, the halting of direct flights from parts of the world considered to be high risk such as Italy’s northern cities of Verona and Milan, which usually head to the Kenyan coast is expected to affect not only major businesses but small and medium enterprises.

DANGEROUS
The manner in which the virus spreads is what makes it dangerous for people to be hurdled in a small space.

Dr Marianne Mureithi, acting chairperson of the Department of Medical Microbiology in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Nairobi said that the virus spreads much like flu, through coughs and sneezes.

She wrote: “Once contracted, it lives and multiplies in the tissues that line the airways. Secretions from these tissues such as mucus and saliva also contain the virus.”
Contaminated surface

The doctor explained: “While the droplets travel only up to about two metres, when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or simply talks, tiny droplets of moisture are expelled into the air, carrying the virus out of the body.”

Another risk comes when people cover their cough or sneeze with their hands and then touch something other people touched, such as a door knob or taps then subsequently a contaminated surface, which spreads the virus.

WHO says the coronavirus can live on surfaces for several days but can be killed by disinfectants such as alcohol or bleach.

In halting the spread by limiting gatherings, the damage is not only on corporate companies, but also on communities.

March is the month Malindi on the Kenya coast is flocked by tourists from Europe.

VIRAL DISEASE

Cancellation of lights from northern Italy cities is therefore likely to force local restaurants and retailers to operate leanly.

Many workers in these hotels are often casual or contractual employees, who depend on their earnings to sustain themselves and their families.

Doom and gloom also hangs over Kenya because it is considered a fragile system. Responding to any outbreak costs money, which in turn affects other sectors of the economy.

In a statement last week, Cabinet Secretary for Health Mutai Kagwe stressed hand washing in the public. He also advised self-quarantine for those who have been to risk areas.

While Africa has recorded relatively low numbers as compared to the west, the World Health Organisations has categorised its health system as “fragile” and would not survive many cases of the viral disease.

Edwine Barasa, a PhD in health economist and the director of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Nairobi programme, said that to be stable, Kenya must invest in health workers, service delivery, health commodities, information systems and financing.

Kenya’s public expenditure on health is only two per cent of its gross domestic product against a recommended five per cent.

The country also suffers from a chronic shortage of health workers: one doctor for every 6,000 people.

Dr Barasa said: “We cannot expect that a country is up to the task of preventing or containing a disease epidemic if we do not have adequate numbers of health workers that are equipped to respond to an outbreak and provide care to those that are infected.

HEALTH COMMODITIES
A network of adequately equipped health facilities and laboratories with capacity to diagnose cases, and crucial health commodities such as medicines and vaccines is very important.”

Then there are the measures that should be put in place in readiness for an outbreak. Kenyatta National Hospital has set up an isolation unit, whose cost is yet to be revealed.

At the moment, eight in 10 of the patients experience mild disease and recover but the other 20 per cent of patients have severe or critical disease, ranging from shortness of breath to septic shock and multi-organ failure.

Such patients require intensive care, life support such as respiratory machines, which are all in short supply in Kenya. This will need investments.
The IMF expects weaker economies to be hit hard.

In remarks made at a joint press conference with the head of the World Bank Group on March 4, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the fund will inject around $50 billion into low-income and emerging market nations should they need it.