As Kenya’s Covid-19 cases decrease, President Uhuru Kenyatta has urged citizens not to celebrate the flattening of the curve too soon, and has ordered the Ministry of Health to be transparent about those awarded tenders in respect of the coronavirus.
Kenyatta was speaking at yesterday’s virtual Covid-19 conference to assess the country’s resilience against the coronavirus.
“In the middle of this crisis, the curve is beginning to flatten. However, we must not celebrate this happy moment too soon, but rather celebrate it with a great deal of caution. More so because the curve begins to flatten after it reaches its highest point. This point is also called the inflection point. And it’s the most dangerous point because the curve can either flatten and de-escalate or take an upward surge,” he said in his address, posted to one of the local news YouTube account.
Kenya’s Covid-19 cases have decreased consistently over the past month, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has concurred with Kenyatta, according to Capital News.
“While the decline is a welcome trend, it is important to interrogate if this is an indication of the country’s true flattening of the curve and how well it represents the national picture of the overall Covid-19 status,” the international health body said in a statement.
The WHO believes the containment of Covid-19 is based on the period of decline over time, which is a 50% decrease in cases over a three-week period from the latest peak in infection.
In the same address, Kenyatta also urged the Ministry of Health to be transparent about tenders awarded in regard to Covid-19, specifically for details involving the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA), according to the Presidency’s official website.
“I also hereby direct that the Ministry of Health, within the next 30 days, must come up with a transparent, open method and mechanism through which all tenders and procurement done by KEMSA are available online,” Kenyatta stated.
Staying true to his original campaign back in 2013 as the “digital president”, he believes in technology to provide transparency and ensure the government has “the confidence of our people that those placed in institutions are able to manage the resources of the Kenyan taxpayer plus our development partners in an open and transparent manner”.
Kenya ranked 138 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2019, scoring twenty-eight out of 100.
John Githongo, the CEO of Inuka, a non-governmental organization involved in governance issues, labelled Kenyatta’s administration as “the most corrupt in Kenya’s history,” the BBC reported.
As of September 1, the WHO has recorded 34,057 cases of Covid-19 in Kenya, with 574 deaths.
Worldometer has recorded 19,893 recoveries from the deadly virus in Kenya.
– Source: African News Agency (ANA)
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