Mombasa medics take off over Chinese seeking Coronavirus test

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More than 300 thousand have recovered from the disease./COURTESY

There was drama as a local hospital in Mombasa when staff and medical personal scampered for safety after two Chinese nationals arrived at the facility seeking to be tested for the dreaded Coronavirus.

The two who arrived in a private van wearing face masks proceeded to the hospital reception area but were shocked as everyone retreated from them and disappeared.

A staff at the popular hospital who asked not to be named for fear of victimization told Baraka FM that they were all terrified and nobody could dare attend to the ‘patients’.

“Security at the gate had called the reception saying the men wanted a Coronavirus test, and immediately they stepped out of the car within the hospital, everybody vanished,” said the staff member, bursting into laughter.

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They were directed towards the hospital parking outside the hospital building where one courageous doctor went to listen to them, said the staff.

Shortly after, they drove off after the doctor advised them that the hospital did not have capacity to test for the virus.

“The doctor told us the men had admitted that one of them had exhibited symptoms similar to those related to the virus, and they were seeking the test just to be sure it was nothing alarming,” said the staff, who works as a nurse at the hospital.

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“We have been trained to deal with, and handle such cases, but again reality is different from theory. We could not go close to them.”

With hundreds of Chinese nationals in the country mostly over Kenya-China related projects like road construction and the Standard Gauge Railway, there has been growing concern over their isolation and stigmatisation by other Kenyans, following the virus that broke out in China.

So far more than 3,800 people across the world have been killed by the virus with at least 100,000 more confirmed infected, including in nine countries within Africa.

Over the weekend, sections of international media reported that Italy had quarantined 16 million of its citizens in the Northern parts of the country, and announced that anybody living in those areas would need special permission to travel.

Italy also closed schools, gyms, museums, nightclubs and other social venues .

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