Lessons from China on control of deadly virus

Having let coronavirus to penetrate into the country, Kenya’s focus has shifted to cure and prevention of the acute flu.  

The viral respiratory disease that has killed more than 5,000 people globally in the last three months.

Kenya has so far registered three confirmed cases with no single fatality. The government has already imposed far-reaching restrictions that include closure of all learning institutions and cancellation of flights from affected countries, as well as investing heavily on isolation centres to complement the National Influenza Centre Laboratory in Nairobi.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who on Sunday confirmed the second and third cases, appears to be taking cue from his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on how to effectively control the virus and avoid the Italian experience, one of the worst afflicted countries with close to 2,000 listed deaths.

“My government has been working to monitor the spread of the virus. We have set up necessary containment and treatment protocols across the country,” the President said when confirming the latest cases.

Like it happened in China, which has significantly controlled the spread of the virus,  Uhuru ordered the immediate suspension of learning and banned entry for people from countries with reported coronavirus cases. 

“Only Kenyan citizens, and any foreigners with valid residence, permits will be allowed into Kenya provided they proceed to self-quarantine or to a government facility,” directed the President.

Illegal immigration

While China, which is the origin of the deadly virus, presents good lessons for Nairobi on how to control spread, Italy is perhaps the global case study of how not to tackle the pandemic following blunders that left its citizens  gravely exposed.

While China has been praised for the swift response to contain the virus, Italy has been widely criticised for lethargy as the disease spreads to other European countries.

“Within Italy, the Covid-19 crisis has taken the wind out of the sails of the League party, whose nativist motto of “Italians First” and criticism of illegal immigration are less convincing now that Italians have become international pariahs: The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic said Italy should ban all citizens from travelling abroad,” said The Antlantic newspaper.

By February 20, 2020, 75,465 Covid-19 cases had been reported in China, but the government was quick to launch a national emergency response.

“A central leadership group for epidemic response and the joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council were established.

General Secretary Xi Jinping personally directed and deployed the prevention and control work and requested that the prevention and control of the Covid-19 outbreak be the top priority of government at all levels,” says a report on a joint mission by the World Health Organisation and China on the management of the virus.

The joint mission consisted of 25 national and international experts from China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, the US and WHO.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang headed the Central Leading Group and went to Wuhan to inspect and co-ordinate the prevention and control work of relevant departments and provinces across the country.

For China, according to the report that was prepared between February 16 and 24, 2020, it had three stages on managing the ailment and the approach has been described as “perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history”.

During the early stage of the outbreak, according to the report, the main strategy focused on preventing the exportation of cases from Wuhan and other priority areas of Hubei Province, and preventing the importation of cases by other provinces.

The overall aim was to control the source of infection, block transmission and prevent spread.

“Protocols for Covid-19 diagnosis and 15 treatment, surveillance, epidemiological investigation, management of close contacts, and laboratory testing were formulated, and relevant surveillance activities and epidemiological investigations conducted.

Diagnostic testing kits were developed, and wildlife and live poultry markets were placed under strict supervision and control measures,” said the report.

Health facilities

This is a complete opposite of the response in Italy, where the disease arrived on February 20, when a 38-year-old man checked into a local hospital in the town of Codogno in Lombardy and tested positive.

Some health officials in Rome have told local and international media that they believe the virus arrived in Italy long before the first case was discovered but the cases were poorly handled leading to a wide spread. “The virus had probably been circulating for quite some time.

This happened right when we were having our peak of influenza and people were presenting with influenza symptoms,” Flavia Riccardo, a researcher in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Italian National Institute of Health told TIME newspaper.

Before the first case was reported, a doctor was quoted saying there was an unusually high number of pneumonia cases recorded at a hospital in Codogno in northern Italy.

This, according to the local media, suggested it’s possible patients with the virus were treated as if they had a seasonal flu and health facilities hosting these patients could have become sites for infection, helping the wide spread.

“This started unnoticed which means by the time we realised it, there were a lot of transmission chains happening,” Riccardo said.

In Italy, millions are locked down and about 2,000 people have died from the coronavirus, but in South Korea, which was hit by the disease at about the same time, only a few thousand are quarantined and 67 people died.

But China, despite being the origin of the disease, and with close to 100, 000 cases, the government has managed to suppress the deaths and spread and presently, the government is working on normalising operations.

During the second stage of the outbreak, the report says the strategy was to reduce the intensity of the epidemic and to slow down the increase in cases. In Wuhan and other priority areas of Hubei, the focus was on actively treating patients, reducing deaths, and preventing exportations.

 “Other measures implemented included the extension of the Spring Festival holiday, traffic controls, and the control of transportation capacity to reduce movement of people; mass gatherings were also cancelled,” says the report.

The third stage focused on reducing clusters of cases, thoroughly controlling the epidemic, and striking a balance between epidemic prevention and control, sustainable economic and social development, the unified command, standardised guidance.

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