Kericho Ebola free patients to move to general wards
Four people put in isolation at the Kericho Referral Hospital over deadly Ebola fears will be moved to general wards. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Kericho County Health official says the four patients will also be offered counselling.
- Members of the public and their immediate families urged not to stigmatise them once they are back home as they have been given a clean bill of health.
- It was a sigh of relief for the residents and Kenyans when Ms Kariuki released the results even as the country heightened its emergency precautionary measures to combat the disease.
Four people put in isolation at the Kericho Referral Hospital over deadly Ebola fears will be moved to general wards, county health official has said.
This is after blood sample tests from a 36-year-old woman with symptoms similar to those of the haemorrhagic fever turned out negative.
The woman, who had travelled from Malaba town in Busia County on the Kenya-Uganda border to see her husband, had been quarantined at the hospital.
Her husband and two friends who helped take her to the facility had also been put in isolation.
“They will be moved to the general ward as they undergo further observation by doctors after the results sent to Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) showed they are Ebola free,” said Dr Shadrack Mutai, the County Executive in charge of Medical Services and Public Health.
The patients will also undergo counselling owing to the trauma they had been subjected to over the incident, Dr Mutai added on Tuesday.
He appealed to members of the public and their immediate families not to stigmatise them once they are back home as they have been given a clean bill of health.
RELIEF
On Monday evening, Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki announced that the patient’s test results had shown the woman was not suffering from Ebola and said Kenya remains free of the deadly virus.
Officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) were also in Kericho to monitor the situation.
Cases of Ebola have been reported in western Uganda after the victims travelled from Democratic Republic of Congo where the outbreak has claimed nearly 1,400 lives.
It was a sigh of relief for the residents and Kenyans when Ms Kariuki released the results even as the country heightened its emergency precautionary measures to combat the disease.
Neighbouring Bomet County Executive in charge of Medical Services Dr Joseph Sitonik on Monday convened a meeting with public and private hospital managers and doctors where a raft of measures were put in place including identification of a possible isolation ward should the test results confirm an Ebola case.
