Kenyan students living in fear of contracting the coronavirus in China will have to find their way home as the government says it will not evacuate them.
Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Amb. Kamau Macharia insists the students are safe where they are.
“Of course we have young people in China. So it is inevitable that they feel apprehensive about the circumstances that they are facing. This is normal,” said the PS.
He says the Kenyan embassy is Beijing will be in touch with the students to reassure them of their safety despite the virus outbreak.
“The government is looking at all options available and should the situation change then the government will respond effectively in the best interest of the students”, he added.
According to the PS, evacuating the students is risky as it may expose the country to the virus.
“Let us not forget that in some of the countries that have evacuated, the infections that have happened in their countries have come as a result of evacuations. So evacuations are not something you do willy nilly,” he added.
So far, there have been seven cases in the country that have all tested negative for the Novel Coronavirus 2019.
Outgoing Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki said there are doctors currently in training to be able to manage the virus.
The doctors will be jetting back into the country on Saturday with reagents to enable them to test virus.
This comes less than a day after a Kenyan family living in Wuhan, a city in China that has been put on lockdown over the virus outbreak said that they are living in hunger after they failed to stock enough food supplies before the lockdown began.
