Nairobi News

A section of irate residents of Kawangware on Friday rejected testing for Covid-19 instead demanding the government addresses issues concerning their stomach first.

The residents argued that they needed food more than mass testing launched by the government on Friday to curb the spread of the virus in the densely populated area.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, during his Friday briefing at Afya House, urged residents of Kawangware to take serious precaution by ensuring social distancing at all times.

Kawangware, according to the ministry of health, is one of the county’s virus hotspots and poses a big challenge as the deadly disease threaten to get out of hand.

Kagwe said the estate leads the city with 13 positive cases, with 6 cases reported in Kilimani and 11 cases in Eastleigh, the three being the leading areas in infections.

“When we say people should keep social distancing this is what we mean, like in Kawangware so many people contracted the virus form one person,” said the CS.

He said mass testing is essential to tracking down cases with symptoms, identifying their household cluster and tracing people they have contacted and quarantining them until they are no longer infectious.

“Kawangware is an area under surveillance. We have identified markets as one of the areas of transmission and we will deploy surveillance team to different zones so to interact with public, ensure social distancing, show people correct ways of putting on masks,” Kagwe added.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the mass testing exercise helps to identify members of a community who have contracted Covid-19, enable them to seek treatment and curtail the spread of the virus.

Kawangware is one of city’s most congested areas as the land on which the people live is smaller compared to, say Karen, where the population occupies vast land.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) census that was conducted last year, Kawangware alone has a population of 291,565 people.