Kenya Citizens Need Fair Access And Equitable Allocation Of COVID-19 Diagnostic Tools.
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Background
COVID-19 has taken lives and exacted a toll on individuals, families, communities, and nations. The pandemic has overwhelmed the health system and badly shaken economies including Kenya’s economy. This shows that health and economics outcomes are interdependent. The effective control will require sustained public health measures and access to affordable, safe efficacious diagnostics, therapeutics, and other tools.
Till now there are no effective treatments and cures for COVID 19 and Kenya has resorted to public health and social measures such as physical distancing and quarantine to contain the spread of the causative virus SARS-CoV-2. However, in October Kenya has realized the high number of COVID 19 fatalities at 253.
The right to health is a fundamental human right guaranteed in the Constitution of Kenya. Article 43 (1) (a) of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to health care services, including diagnostics.
Diagnostic tools available in Kenya
Health products must be available when and where they are needed, contextually, and culturally appropriate, quality-assured, safe, efficacious, and affordable. Overwhelming demand, scarce manufacturing capacity, high costs, and lack of global allocation mechanisms have played a role in delays in access to life-saving medicines and other health products.
Even though the solidarity and collaboration of global stakeholders including the establishment of Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator will help to ensure the availability of these products, more is needed.
Noting that on 4th November 2020, H.E. President of the Republic of Kenya will convene the extraordinary session convened in light of the resurgence of Covid-19 infections across our nation, as exhibited by the fact that Kenya has recorded its highest number of covid-19 monthly fatalities in October 2020.
At the moment Kenyans who require diagnostics tests are accessing COVID 19 RT-PCR test which offers real-time results. However, the cost of accessing the test is at a minimum costs of Kshs.7,700.00 making this inaccessible to many Kenyans.
Call to Action
Therefore, the Kenya Civil Society calls on the government.
To put in place countrywide plans for massive targeted testing within all the communities to avoid a continuously high rate of transmission among the populace.
To provide urgently utilization of rapid test technologies for COVID-19 which is WHO approved.
To ensure that the National Health Insurance Fund is utilized by Kenyans who fall sick due to COVID-19 to pay for their medication and inpatient medical bills..
All the counties must form an infrastructure to identify all the affected persons and families with the counties and come up with a psychosocial social for all the affected families both financially and counseling.
The ministry of health must develop policy and guidelines for operationalization of mass targeted testing within all the dispensaries and health centers in the country similar to the VCT infrastructure
The ministry to move with speed to acquire the rapid testing kits due to demand caused by the second wave globally to avoid stockout.
The ministry should ensure that Covid does response does not overrun diagnosis testing treatment of the following disease HIV, TB, malaria, and immunization programs as indicated in the recently released report by the union
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