The Ministry of Health has warned against fumigating children in schools after videos went viral of learners being sprayed on Monday when schools reopened after a long COVID-19 break that started in March.
Health Chief Administrative Secretary Dr. Rashid Aman said the use of disinfectants on humans can have a harmful physical and psychological effect.
“I actually saw that clip where children were being fumigated. That is not something that the Ministry recommends, remember we said that those things are not supposed to be applied on human beings, we stopped that,” he said, “I know that our office has taken notice and is taking action to advise the schools that something like this is not acceptable to spray children with fumigants on their bodies, clothes and skin.”
The videos were taken on Monday as students in Grade 4, Class 8 and Form 4 resumed in-person learning since March when the government was forced to close down all learning institutions after recording the first COVID-19 case.
Dr. Aman further stated that the Ministry may have to consider introducing occasional testing on students in order to observe how the pandemic behaves in a large population environment such as schools.
“One of the things that we have been discussing is how do we monitor the situation in schools, where we have large numbers of students, I think definitely we will require to be doing some level of testing in those populations to see whether there is transmission of asymptomatic cases,” Aman stated.
Kenya’s COVID-19 infections have declined since August, with the daily cases not going beyond 300.
The country had recorded 41,937 cases by October 13, with 787 fatalities.
