The Ministry of Health is now calling on national and county governments to revive the isolation centers used during the Covid-19 era in the event of an escalation of Mpox.

Yesterday, Public Health and Professional Standards Principal Secretary, Mary Muthoni hinted that the government will repurpose all the isolation centres that hosted Covid-19 patients at the height of the pandemic in readiness to handle any emergencies.

Speaking at Afya House to our sister station, K24TV, the PS said the Ministry has also activated the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre (PHEOC), to enhance coordination with the counties in case of any outbreak related to the Mpox.

“In collaboration with the county governments we have instituted relevant preparedness and response measures to strengthen coordination amongst the national and county government players,” she said.

At the same time, Muthoni said Kenya has initiated consultation with the World Health Organisation-WHO, Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa- CDC) and other institutions with the view of accessing vaccines that the global UN health body has approved for emergency use.

Possible outbreak

“So it’s work ongoing to ensure that we are prepared to tackle any emergency, if there is an Mpox outbreak,” she added.

There are 25 PHEOC across the country, according to Muthoni who said the Ministry has enhanced its surveillance across the country and points of entry, strengthened monitoring at exits and entry points, and their readiness surveyed last weekend.

The Ministry has also dedicated four laboratories to be able to do the testing of Mpox, and subsequently, Director General of Health at the Ministry, Dr Patrick Amoth there is a redundant capacity of more than 100 laboratories that can be operationalised in case of a need for additional laboratory support .

Needs coordination

He said Mpox is a great threat to public health and requires coordination at all levels of society to be able to bring the outbreak to an end.

“So, one is heightened surveillance at the ports of entry,” he said when he spoke to journalists on Monday, adding, the Ministry has also done a communiqué to the healthcare workers, to be able to identify what Mpox is.

He said the Ministry has also developed clinical guidelines to be able to elucidate the case diagnosis of Mpox.

“We have upped our diagnostic capacity, remember the platform used to test Mpox is the same one used for testing Covid-19, called PCR- the Polymerase Chain Reaction.

“Critically, outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics begin in a community so it’s important that we communicate with the communities and therefore we are upping our game in risk communication and community engagement,” he said.

According to Amoth the community becomes a bedrock in terms of interrupting transmission. He said, again, from lessons learnt from the Covid-19, the MoH has the Rapid Response Teams at its disposal anytime to be able to respond to emergencies anywhere.

“To be able to mobilise resources, we have developed and finalised our response plan, and soon we will be having discussions with our development partners and also internally from our own resources to be able to leverage on what we have to be able to mount an outbreak response,” he said.

In terms of diagnostic capacity, Dr. Amoth pointed out that the MoH will also do sequencing.