Parents whose children reported back to school on October 12 are now in panic after reports of more than 25 cases of students in various schools around the country testing positive for COVID-19.
On Friday, 11 students from Friends’ Kamusinga in Bungoma tested positive; 10 from Maranda High School and another six from Kimilili High school.
The students have since been isolated to prevent the further spread of the disease.
Siaya County health department has since rolled out mass COVID-19 testing at Maranda High School.
The county’s Health Chief Officer Dr Eunice Fwaya said that one of the students travelled from Mombasa while positive and infected nine others from his school.
“The cases are from the first one of a student who tested positive earlier this week,” Dr Fwaya told the Nation.
Siaya Education Director Joseph Wamocho maintained that they will do contract tracing at the school to avoid a full-blown pandemic at the institution.
A teacher at Friends’ Kamusinga said that they are following the Ministry of Health’s containment measures to the letter in order to avert further crisis.
The teacher said that students have their facemasks all the time, keep social distance and are also maintaining the highest levels of hygiene.
As this unfolds, another secondary school teacher from Mogotio, Baringo County succumbed to COVID-19 at the Nakuru Level Five Hospital on Thursday.
It came a few days after Tononoka Secondary School’s principal Mohammed Khamis died early this week from coronavirus.
Tononoka together with Star of the Sea High School still in Mombasa were closed last week after more than 15 teachers tested positive for coronavirus.
But even as the number of cases continues to rise, the government is reportedly mulling a formula to have the full reopening of schools.
Sources say that Health CS Mutahi Kagwe has Okayed the mass reopening of schools.
What remains is the final deliberation between the Education Ministry and other stakeholders and the official communication on the full school reopening be communicated to Kenyans next week.
On Friday, 1,185 new COVID-19 cases were recorded, the highest number since the beginning of October.
This put the country’s caseload at 53,797 with a record of 981 deaths after 17 more people succumbed to the virus on Friday.
Another 346 patients recovered bringing the total recoveries to 35,604.
