CFK<\/a>), a non-governmental organisation based in Nairobi\u2019s Kibera slum, alongside the Health ministry is on a mission to clear these misconceptions among the residents amid the corona reality. Kibera slum, on the outskirts of the capital, hosts about 400,000 residents and is the largest informal settlement in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHouseholds in the neighbourhood are slowly awakening to the new\nculture of regular hand washing and slathering their palms with sanitisers amid\ngrowing campaigns by the government, the media and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn our campaigns, we have\nencountered many residents with myths and misconceptions. Some say it\u2019s a rich\nman\u2019s disease, attacking only those that travel abroad; others say it only\naffects the elderly; others have heard that it can\u2019t survive in the warm\ntropical weather while others believe the black man\u2019s melanin is their shield, obviously\nas a result of not having full information,\u201d said Eddah Ogogo, a primary health\ncare program coordinator at CFK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome even think it\u2019s a normal cold and can\u2019t quite tell the\ndifference from the symptoms of Covid -19 which could sound similar to a\nlayman. They wonder what\u2019s the big deal with a common flu?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To turn the tide of misinformation and half-truths, the NGO is\nprinting posters with precautionary info on Covid-19 alongside sensitisation\ndrive by trained volunteers as a complement to the government\u2019s ongoing media efforts\nand SMS alerts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flu-like corona pathogen is transmitted through respiratory\ndroplets from an infected person when they sneeze or cough, alongside handshakes\nor body contact. Also by touching a surface or object or bank notes\ncontaminated with the virus that assaults victims in a similar fashion like\npneumonia. Social distancing and washing hands with soap and running water are\nseen as powerful ammunitions in the war against the bug \u2013 tools that poor\nhomes, however, have no luxury of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have asked people\nwho have flu-like symptoms to reach out to the nearby health facility in Kibera\nand get a mask. This is primarily to prevent respiratory droplets from getting\ninto contact with the rest of the family members in the house. At the same\ntime, those who display corona-like symptoms including shortness of breath are\nchecked in for referral,\u201d said Ogogo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, as middle class households went on a maddening shopping\nspree, stockpiling essentials, soap, disinfectants and hand sanitisers with the\nconfirmation of a first case in Kenya, it was business as usual in the informal\nsettlements. It was a tale of two cities, a land of stark contrasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the Kenyan government has imposed partial lockdown and\nurged self-quarantines, observing the restrictions is proving difficult for\npoor families, which lack a rainy day fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most slum dwellers live hand to mouth, and failure by\nbreadwinners to go out and do casual jobs could mean going to bed hungry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSelf-quarantine is extremely hard for us. Our houses are very\nsmall. Most of us live in single room with our entire family. There\u2019s no proper\nventilation, the windows are tiny and the houses are very close to each other,\u201d\nsaid Elizabeth Akinyi, a hawker and community health volunteer at CFK offices\nin Kibera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou can imagine myself, my husband and my children crammed\nin a tiny, dusty room. It\u2019s not only uncomfortable but could even pose health\nrisks,\u201d she said, pointing out that under the conditions, it\u2019s hard to prevent\nher children from playing outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another curveball is access to clean water in the slum, let\nalone running water, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kibera is dotted with\novercrowded shacks, and grapples with poor sanitation and grinding poverty that\nsuccessive governments have done little to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s mainly made up of shacks\n\u2013 mud-walled structures with corrugated tin roofs \u2013 owned by slumlords without\ntitle deeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World Bank has previously\ncalled out the government over failure to modernise the settlement even as\ncash-hungry slumlords and politicians block possible upgrades for\nself-interests. Kibera\u2019s lords of poverty, who are yet to be unmasked, mint\nmillions of shillings from rent and service charge cash from the predicament of\nthousands of slum dwellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kenya\u2019s economy is robbed of $1\nbillion (Sh100 billion) in missed capital value for not developing the slum,\naccording to the World Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Akinyi says that she has been conducting awareness campaigns on\nCovid-19 after receiving training from the NGO. She also follows news on the Covid-19\non TV to stay up-to-date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost people around here are used to washing their hands only\nbefore and after eating, they don\u2019t wash hands for any other reason, not even\nafter visiting the toilet. So you can imagine the difficulty that comes with\ntrying to shift their perception and habits to start cleaning their hands regularly,\u201d\nsaid Akinyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome, including mama mboga (roadside vegetable hawkers) argue\nthat God will protect them should the disease strike while downplaying the role\nof preventive measures against infections,\u201d she said, adding that she\u2019s trying\nher level best to shift such backward attitudes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wanting to portray herself as a role model and to instill\ngood behaviour among her neighbours and fellow hawkers, Akinyi is leading by\nexample.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have placed a hand washing equipment outside my house. Anyone\nentering my house must wash their hands before entering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cleanliness evangelist, Akinyi has also preached the same\ngospel to her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYesterday after I signed some form I had received, I forgot\nto wash my hands. My son, all this while watching me, parroted at me the \u2018wash-wash\u2019 tune, reminding\nme to do the necessary,\u201d she beams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kenya\u2019s Health cabinet secretary Mutahi Kagwe yesterday announced three\nmore coronavirus cases, taking the total count to seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kenya reported its first case on March 13\ninvolving a 27-year old woman who travelled to Kenya from the US, via London.\nShe\u2019s still receiving healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than a dozen contact cases have been quarantined for tests, amid fears that the number of confirmed cases could blow up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read also: <\/strong>Coronavirus: Litmus Test For Kenya\u2019s Industrial Base<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nairobi\u2019s slum dwellers are only slowly ditching the twisted belief that the deadly coronavirus ravaging the world is a rich man\u2019s disease amid sensitization drives. It\u2019s not hard to see…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[310,438,455,920,1028,1562],"class_list":["post-8673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-responsibility","tag-carolina-for-kibera","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-kibera","tag-mutahi-kagwe","tag-world-health-organisation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}