NAIROBI, Kenya
Kenya is rolling out voluntary public testing for the novel coronavirus in its biggest slum, where some residents say being declared virus-free boosts their chances of getting a job.
Kenya
records the highest number of single day COVID-19 infections, 123 people turned
positive after testing 3,077. Three more people have succumbed to the disease.
“Nowadays when you look
for work, they first ask to see your results first,” Shadrack Jumba, a resident
of Kibera, located in Nairobi’s southwest, told Reuters as health workers took
samples from people on Tuesday.
“They ask
you to go back and get tested. If your results come back negative, you are
fine, but with no test results, it’s a bit difficult to get employed.”
Kibera is
one of Africa’s biggest urban slums, home to an estimated half million people,
who mostly live in tin-roofed shacks tightly packed together, conditions health
authorities say make it hard to slow the spread of infection.
The effort
to roll out mass testing there shows how African countries, so far spared the
worst of the coronavirus crisis, are trying to head off an epidemic that has killed
hundreds of thousands of people on other continents.
Many Kibera residents are casual labourers, cleaners, market sellers and motorbike taxi drivers, who have lost work due to the COVID-19-linked restrictions in Kenya. Some are reluctant to be tested, fearing neighbours will shun them.
Kenya has so
far recorded 1,471 cases of COVID-19 and
55 deaths, far fewer than in comparably-sized countries in Europe, Asia or the
Americas. In recent days, there has been an increase in cases in Kibera, and
the Kenyan government has weighed plans to lock down the area, according to the
Kenya Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe.
Kalebi said Kenya’s low case load so far “suggests to me we have actually kind of dodged a bullet.” But health authorities have said they expect the number of cases to peak in September.
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