Kenya:Nairobi remand prison locked down over surge in Covid-19 cases

By Samuel Ouma

The Ministry of Health has placed the Industrial Area Remand Prison under lockdown for the next 30 days following a rise in the number of Covid-19 cases at the facility.

Making the announcement on Tuesday, October 6, 2020, Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Dr Rashid Aman said that 34 cases out of the 64 in Nairobi in the last 24 hours were from the prison.

Dr Aman noted that during the period there will be no movement in and outside the correctional facility.

Also suspended is the admission of new remandees effective from Wednesday until the situation is contained.

Relevant authorities have been asked to comply with the directives while ensuring the criminal justice system is not disrupted.

“The Justice sector particularly the judiciary, police and prisons are expected to work on a mechanism to deal with this emerging issue, to ensure the criminal justice system is not disrupted,” said the CAS.

At the same time, Aman announced 137 new cases from a sample of 1,258 bringing the country’s caseload to 39,586.

The youngest patient was one-year-old and the oldest 81-years-old with 94 being males and 43 females.

In terms of distribution, Nairobi had 64, Turkana 34, Mombasa 12, Kiambu 8, Trans Nzoia 4, Kericho, Kisii, Kisumu and Meru had 1 case each.

Eight more patients were reported to have succumbed to the deadly virus bringing the total number of fatalities to 743.

Consequently, the number of recoveries has risen to 27,331 after 296 patients were discharged.