NAIROBI, Kenya
Tanzanians
will be allowed into Kenya without undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine,
Foreign Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Ababu Namwamba has said.Foreign Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Ababu Namwamba
Namwamba said this was a result
of Kenya's good neighbourliness with her southern neighbour.
Tanzania is now among 147
countries whose citizens are exempted from the 14-day mandatory quarantine upon
arrival.
The CAS said Kenya’s foreign
policy is about constructive engagement, shared prosperity and being there for
one another.
“It is in that spirit that we
consider ourselves to be a good neighbour to all and we consider Tanzania to be
a friendly, brotherly, sisterly country with whom we share a fantastic relationship,”
Namwamba said during Wednesday's Covid-19 update at Afya House in
Nairobi.
He said Kenya will focus on the
factors that make countries stronger together.
“We are happy that we can engage
and interact through the airspace, through our roads and our assurance is that
Kenya will continue to pursue that policy of good neighbourliness and
constructive engagement.”
Last month, Tanzania banned Kenya
Airways from flying into the country. It lifted the ban on Tuesday.
Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said 14,000
passengers have arrived in the country since Kenya opened her skies to
international travellers last month.
A team is working with the KCAA and the Airports Authority to assess the number of incoming and outgoing passengers to tell whether there is any change in imported coronavirus cases.
“What is important right now is
not to really deal with imported cases but to realise that we have community
transmission in the country,” Mwangangi said.
She added: “If 14,000 people came
into a population of 40,000 who already have community transmitted Covid-19 it
means that effect is highly diluted for that to be a cause of concern.”
Acting Health director general
Patrick Amoth said good protocols developed jointly by the Health and Transport
ministries and the airlines have limited the importation of the virus.
They include stringent
follow-ups, mandatory screening at the points of entry and insistence on a
Covid-19 negative certificate before arrival in Kenya.
On Wednesday, the ministry
reported 92 positive cases from a sample of 2,985, bringing the caseload to
36,393.
Some 165 people recovered, 60
from home-based care while 105 were discharged from hospitals.
Three more patients died, raising
the death toll to 637.
Twenty-five out of the new cases
were from Nairobi, 20 from Mombasa, with Nakuru recording eight cases.
Garissa had seven, Uasin Gishu
six, Kisumu five, Turkana and Kiambu four cases each and Kakamega three cases.
Machakos, Kajiado and Busia
recorded two cases each while Nyeri, Kilifi, Taita Taveta and Tana River had
one each.
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