The government will exploit influenza surveillance sites to determine whether Covid-19 had been in the country earlier than March 12, when the first case was reported.
This comes at a time when 11 more cases have been reported, bringing the total to 281.
Health Chief Administrative Secretary Mercy Mwangangi told the Nation that the ministry will seek the assistance of the sentinel sites that were established in the late 2000s at the height of avian flu.
Dr Mwangangi said this exercise, which is known as serosurveillance, will be done alongside the targeted mass testing.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said Kenya has 281 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 14 deaths.
However, there is concern that there are deaths that could be recorded as acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia in lower level hospitals and facilities that are not earmarked for managing patients with the virus.
Experts note that serosurveillance will be important now that the disease is in the community and being spread by asymptomatic individuals, people who are sick, but show no signs.
The number of tests that Kenya has conducted — over 13,000 — is commendable in comparison to other African countries, but still leaves out many people without knowing the potential to spread the disease.
The CS also asked counties to up their surveillance because the disease has spread to counties adjacent to Nairobi — Murang’a, Machakos, Kajiado and Kiambu.
Mombasa County has also reported a number of cases.
Last week, Isiolo Governor Mohamed Kuti said the virus is spreading in the counties and raised concern about markets as a potential infection ground.
There is a global challenge in procuring test kits and even two of the four that Kenya has preapproved for use belong to Cepheid and Abbot Molecular Inc companies, which were told in March not to export testing by their home country (United States). The other two are Roche Diagnostics and Biofire Defense LLC.
Shortage of kits makes testing of patients difficult and inadequate, and this could have left the virus to circulate in the community, hence the need for serosurveillance, experts say.
Sam Kariuki, a professor in microbiology and head of research at Kenya Medical Research, said serosurveillance is critical to know how far the disease has spread.
Prof Kariuki explains how it will be done: Scientists will have tests that identify antibodies to coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) in a patient’s bloodstream to determine whether that person previously had Covid-19. When a person is exposed to a pathogen, the body mounts a defence to protect itself. After one has healed, these antibodies remain in the system and can be detected later in spite of the healing.
The professor said that this is not a test for infections that are present in a person, but it basically looks for antibodies after one had an infection.
Prof Thumbi Ndung’u, another Kenyan scientist now in South Africa, said the test would help the healthcare fraternity understand how people produce antibodies to the virus as well as design public health interventions.
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