Parents in Kilifi are living in anguish after 17 children died following a mysterious illness reported between March 2 and March 22, 2020.
The agonising situation has also left the county's health workers in a worried state as they could not identify what was killing the young ones, The Standard reported on Sunday, March 29.
According to the report, the toddlers all died within exhibiting symptoms which included difficulty in breathing, a fever, general body weakness, and a dry mild cough.
One of the parents Zacharia Opollo, lost his daughter, Miriam Ndede (one-and-a-half years old) in under 24 hours of falling sick.
Narrating his disheartening story, the father revealed that his daughter started experiencing difficulty in breathing on the night of March 3, and he rushed her to a private facility in Kilifi where she was treated and discharged.
However, her symptoms worsened and at 2 a.m. he was back at the hospital, however, after several inconclusive tests, he decided to rush her to Malindi sub-County Hospital where she was immediately admitted to the High Dependency Unit.
Okollo went on to reveal that his daughter passed on at 4 a.m. and that the doctors didn't seem to have an answer as to what exactly had brought about the sudden and unexpected demise.
Sixteen other parents have been in the same situation in just over 3 weeks.
Alfred Ouma stated that he lost his 8-month-old daughter under the exact same conditions.
"She died in less than 24 hours and the diagnosis they gave was pneumonia," he narrated.
However, he claims that she did not respond to any of the medication and that by the time she got to Kilifi County Hospital, she was in shock and soon passed away.
"Over the last two weeks, we have seen children with similar presentations of sickness," one of the health workers in Kilifi disclosed to The Standard adding that the children would usually die in a matter of hours after getting to the hospital.
"We are puzzled, we don't know whether there is something at the hospitals that is affecting these children and interfering with their treatment process," the health worker further stated.
The puzzling deaths come at a time when Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Mutahi Kagwe, highlighted Kilifi County as one of the high-risk areas in regards to the deadly Coronavirus that has turned into a global pandemic.
However, the health workers who tried to treat the children could not establish what killed them, with some claiming that it could be a bad case of pneumonia.
