A businessman suspected to have Coronavirus has been quarantined after the government traced him to Serena Hotel on Thursday, March 19.
While issuing a press conference at Afya House on March 19, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe informed that the man travelled from Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday, March 15, 2020.
It had been earlier reported that since his arrival into the country, he may have spent time in at least three high-end hotels in Nairobi County.
CS Kagwe stated that he had been taken to the isolation and treatment facility at Mbagathi Hospital for testing.
Serena Hotel explained that the man was not a resident at the establishment but was intercepted at its lobby.
On March 18, Kagwe had warned that after invoking the Public Health Act, any individual who defied the directive to self-quarantine after travelling into the country attracted legal action from the state. This included jail terms.
He had further stated that all individuals arriving into the country would be made to sign a document, which allowed the government to keep track of all of them, and take action if the given directives were subverted.
The CS further stated that the government was tracking 145 persons suspected to have come into contact with the seven patients who tested positive.
He informed the public that the 145 are expected to undergo testing for the Covid-19 virus, so as to establish their status. He added that over the last 24 hours, eight individuals who had been screened and tested, turned out negative and were being processed for discharge.
“So this is good news that today we are not reporting an increase in the positive cases we have in the country. We are however continuing with tests and contact tracing and we have already contacted 145 people who have come into contact with persons who have tested positive for the virus,” Kagwe stated.
He informed that the government had screened over 600,000 people at all entry points in the country, including airports, and borders and tested 173 individuals as of the time of delivering the presser.
“Out of these, seven turned out positive. The seven patients are in stable condition and the Ministry of Health has begun testing them again to see if they might have turned negative,” Kagwe stated.
