Kenya: New Covid Restrictions Imposed in Kenya’s Lake Basin Region

“The health condition is poor here. They don’t have health equipment, they don’t have materials people are suffering,” Odinga said. “There is not enough medicine and poverty contributes a lot to the problem because you are told to bring this and that and you don’t have it. There is congestion in the hospitals. People are suffering a great deal.

Odinga says the virus has affected her mental state.

“I am traumatized,” Odinga said. “Some of my relatives are visiting me and when you lose a relative, you are also traumatized and if you are so close to them, you might be infected because this virus is hidden and you just find you are also infected. I am seriously affected. I cannot even communicate with my relatives freely.”

The current surge in infections in the western region is partly blamed on the national Independence Day event hosted in Kisumu County in early June. Thousands of people were seen running after politicians.

The county health minister, Boaz Otieno, says officials are doing everything they can to improve health facilities.

“What we have done, we mobilized health workers from less congested, less used facilities to the main facilities,” said Otieno. “We have enhanced our oxygen capacity to as much as we can and then increased testing is part of that facility but the earlier the test is done, the better for the eventual outcome.”

Since March 2020, Kenya has recorded 176,000 coronavirus cases and more than 3,400 deaths.