As reports surfaced that Kenyan medics were fearing for their lives as they lead the fight against Coronavirus (Covid-19), Jack Ma, China's richest man, offered a safe way to contain the disease.
On Wednesday, March 18, the tycoon who is worth Ksh4 trillion announced the publication of a digital handbook that shared lessons and experience from frontline doctors, medical administrators and staff in fighting the Coronavirus in China.
This followed China's success in reducing domestic cases of Coronavirus, as her doctors and nurses joined hands to write the handbook to help other countries follow suit.
The report focuses on the experience of the First Affiliated Hospital at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, which over a 50-day period admitted 104 Coronavirus patients but made it through the worst of the crisis without a single medical staff being infected, missed diagnosis or patient death.
"Today, with the spread of the global pandemic, these experiences are precious and the most important weapon for medical personnel. Hospitals in outbreak countries will face huge challenges in coping with the surge of patients.
"We hope that, with this handbook, doctors and nurses in other affected areas can learn from experience as they face this battle, without having to start from scratch," Jack Ma wrote on the foreword in the handbook.
The book details measures to be undertaken by practitioners, how laboratories should be set up, isolation, treatment and screening of patients and how those who recover should be looked after.
The news came a day after the philanthropist donated 20,000 test kits, 100,000 masks and 1,000 medical use protective suits and face shields to Kenya and all other African countries.
The World Bank, on Monday, March 16, also announced that Kenya would receive Ksh6 billion in funding. On March Wednesday, March 18, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) further offered to set up a state-of-the-art laboratory in Kenya to support health surveillance of the coronavirus.
Health CS, Mutahi Kagwe, on Wednesday, March 18, while confirming Kenya's seventh Coronavirus case, announced that the government had for the first time been able to work hand in hand with doctors from Wuhan as it battles to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
"Today for the first time, via a video conferencing capacity we have just installed today, our doctors were able to talk one on one with the Chinese doctors who have been handling the Wuhan outbreak.
"This is an extremely important step in terms of knowledge share. They gave us a tremendous amount of knowledge which we believe will go a long way in helping our people," Kagwe stated in the press conference.
In mid-January 2020, the Chinese government introduced unprecedented measures to contain the virus, which included stopping movement in and out of Wuhan (the centre of the epidemic), and 15 other cities in Hubei Province (home to more than 60 million people).
Flights and trains were suspended, with roads blocked across entire provinces in a bid to curb transmission of the deadly virus via person-to-person contact.
In a report released late February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) congratulated China on what it described as a unique and unprecedented public health response which played a key role in de-escalating the cases.
