The next two weeks will be a key test case for assessing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in Kenya.
In fact, the Government has announced the start of "mass" testing in Mombasa, Nairobi and three other counties of the nation, for an operation whose first phase will continue until Sunday, May 3 with the first 25 thousand citizens subjected to swabs, practically more than the number of swabs carried out since the beginning of the emergency in Kenya, 40 days ago, which are just under 21 thousand.
The people chosen for the tampons belong to categories considered at high risk: in these days the tests on the workers of the port of Mombasa, one of the main outbreaks of the country that has already seen three deaths and many positives, have begun.
The Minister of Health Mutahi Kagwe announced that 14,000 dockworkers will be visited and swabbed and with them the truck drivers who leave the port of Mombasa, with related authorizations, to deliver their goods, which are essential goods to be distributed despite the lockdown in Mombasa County, in other areas of the country.
In addition to these tests, the Government has also prepared a number of swabs to verify the condition of suspect or at-risk patients, but also according to the random verification method in the five counties that are currently closed
"In the capital we will test 5,000 - Kagwe said - in Mombasa 2,000, Mandera, Kilifi and Kwale 1,000 respectively. Among the people observed in the counties are supermarket workers, public transport drivers, market vendors and people who have come into contact or interact with a high number of people a day".
Second, all quarantined patients will be checked, more than three thousand health workers among those involved in the Covid-19 emergency and other contacts that emerge every day, sifting through the relatives and friendships of the new positives".
The ministry is also considering testing 2,000 people with flu-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory infections distributed in eight health surveillance facilities of the influenza syndrome centres (Nakuru, Nyeri, Kenyatta National Hospital, Kakamega, Marsabit, Mombasa, Siaya and Kakuma).
"We have stressed the crucial importance of swabs and in this case the speed of diagnosis is crucial - continues the Kenyan Health Minister - the priorities are three: to trace the cases with the symptoms, identify their family groups, and find the people they contacted, putting them in quarantine until they are no longer contagious. Swabs are the basis for public health investigation work to stop the epidemic. Testing, isolating and treating is now our mantra to break the chain of transmission.
Meanwhile, private tampons are available to citizens at prices ranging from 70 to 100 euros. The Government, on the other hand, estimates a cost of Kes. 2500 per pad (about € 20) and provides for a procedure of three random tampons, the first one to verify the positivity at the start and two others to declare a patient who is negative to be cured, before discharging him.
"But there are people who have to be tested even five times, depending on their individual case - concluded Kagwe - so the costs are often high and we certainly can't start testing everyone".
In any case, the Government's strategy has been criticized by a committee set up ad hoc by the Senate of Kenya and chaired by MP Johnson Sakaya. Sakaya criticized the government's work of targeting "mass swabs", asking in particular to explain the criteria by which citizens are chosen to be swabbed, given that they represent only a small part of the people at risk in the country and that it seems certain that for every suspect there is an asymptomatic one who has the same chance of infecting others.
Kagwe replied that the Ministry of Health's strategy is similar to that applied by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which have also given priority to high-risk patients, particularly those over 65 and those suffering from other health conditions, such as diabetes, which make them vulnerable.