• Governors say that they trained 9,700 public medical practitioners.
• They have set up 3,000 isolation beds in county hospitals and colleges.
Counties say they have increased the capacity for isolation of Covid-19 patients to 3,000 beds.
Council of Governors chairman Wycliffe Oparanya said that was part of the measures put in place to handle the pandemic.
However, governors decried the poor response in the supply of medicine and other health equipment by the Kenya Medical Supply Authority (Kemsa).
“Counties are facing a challenge in the procurement of medical supplies due to Kemsa's monopoly,” Oparanya said.
“The state and Parliament should urgently review or suspend this law."
Oparanya addressed the media on Wednesday at the CoG offices in Nairobi on the status of preparedness of counties in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are grateful to the Ministry of Health for keeping us abreast of daily updates on key information on the status of coronavirus in the country. Remarkably, county governments have relentlessly continued to implement the directives issued by the national government through enforcing the curfew and the partial lockdown,” Oparanya said.
Counties are using hospitals, Kenya Medical Training Colleges and universities which have cubicles to reduce mingling of isolated persons.
“Counties have also made progress towards procuring more ICU beds hence increasing the capacity from 162 to 2o8 and increased ventilators from the previous 161 to 201,” Oparanya said.
The devolved units have trained 9,700 public medical practitioners on how to handle Covid-19 patients.
They said they committed Sh5 billion in the County Governments Emergency Fund to respond to Covid- 19.
“We have also supported farmers by distributing 9.225 metric tons of fertiliser and 10,060 metric tons of assorted seeds. This has allowed farmers to embark on planting,” Oparanya said.
They are implementing the national government directives and executing social awareness at the grassroots level to ensure that Kenyans understand the effects of Covid-19.
Oparanya said measures put in place by both governments will help contain the outbreak.
“The Health ministry predicted that the number of positive cases would increase exponentially between the second and third weeks with at least 5,000 positive cases by mid-April. However, through a collective effort by both levels of government, we note that community transmissions have slowed down to 216 positive cases compared to the projected number,” Oparanya said.
They thanked the local innovators for playing a critical role in the fight against covid-19.
County governments are now purchasing locally manufactured PPEs to mitigate the shortage. “While we note mass production of face masks locally, we hope that the production will result in a reduction of the retail price of the face masks,” Oparanya said.
Edited by Henry Makori