Nine people, among them three Kenya Defence Forces soldiers, who had been quarantined at the Isiolo County Referral Hospital with coronavirus-like symptoms have tested negative for the disease.
The others include a police officer who travelled back to Merti from western Kenya and a 25-year-old man who, alongside four others, jetted into the country from Qatar on March 16.
Isiolo County Health Executive Wario Galma said one of the soldiers who was sick presented himself at the hospital and was isolated together with the two others who had accompanied him.
He said the nine had been released from the Kenya Medical Training College isolation wards at the referral hospital.
“We sent their samples to Nairobi and they have all tested negative,” Mr Galma told journalists in Isiolo town on Monday.
This came as relief to the county and Kenya whose confirmed cases now stand at 158 with six deaths.
Mr Galma said two families that travelled from Mombasa and Nairobi have been placed under quarantine at their homes in Jua Kali and Livestock Market Division areas after residents reported about their visits.
One of the families consists of four children and three adults, according to the official.
“We saw it important for them to be quarantined at their homes as it was not safe moving them from the areas to the hospital. They are being monitored on a daily basis,” he noted.
Mr Galma appealed to residents to promptly report, through the emergency number, any suspected cases of people visiting the county from areas where positive cases have been reported for speedy response.
He complained that, instead of allowing health workers do their work when suspected cases are reported, residents are crowding to “see how the infected look like”.
“They (residents) should know that they are risking their lives for drawing near to a person with coronavirus-like symptoms or suspected to have come into contact with an infected person,” he said.
The county government, he said, has already ordered eight ventilators from Philips to help deal with the pandemic.
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