![Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said all aboard the van, including “respectable people”, were arrested and placed under mandatory quarantine. [PHOTO | FILE]](https://i0.wp.com/www.k24tv.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/MUTAHI-KAGWE-1.jpg?resize=730%2C414&ssl=1)
Health CS Mutahi Kagwe on Saturday, April 18, revealed that a group of Kenyans travelling to Homa Bay County from Nairobi managed to flout the 21-day travel ban out of the commercial capital by carrying an empty casket on a van, and pretended that they were transporting their dead relative home for burial.
The minister revealed that authorities in Homa Bay informed the Health ministry about the trick used by the travellers.
Kagwe said all aboard the van, including “respectable people”, were arrested and placed under mandatory quarantine.
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“The driver of the vehicle tested positive for coronavirus,” said the CS, adding that occupants of the impounded van will be arraigned.
In yet another trick, Kagwe revealed that persons under mandatory, quarantine who haven’t completed the required 14-day isolation period, have been bribing their way out of the centres.
The CS gave an example of a Mandera quarantine centre, where individuals under forced confinement paid the administrators of the facility to secure their release.
“Everyone who participated in the bribery, will face the full force of the law,” said the CS.
The CS also disclosed that there is another group that bribes law enforcement officers manning roadblocks so as to be allowed to breach the 21-day travel ban that was issued on April 6.
“They (persons breaching travel restriction) alight from the vehicles they are travelling in, issue monetary bribes to officers manning road blocks, walk several meters past the cut-off and, thereafter, board the vehicles they were in, and continue with their journeys,” said the CS.
“I want to tell such irresponsible drivers that they are rolling back our efforts to fight the disease. The enforcement agencies will catch up with you,” warned Kagwe, who observed that if measures of stopping the spread of COVID-19 are not strongly adhered to, then Kenya could lose up to 28, 000 people to the contagion.
The CS revealed that as of Saturday, April 18, Kenya recorded 16 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total COVID-19 cases to 262. The 16 new cases were discovered from 1, 115 samples tested between Friday and Saturday.
All the new confirmed cases have no history of foreign travel. Twelve of the new cases are male, whereas four are female. Fifteen of the 16 are Kenyans, whereas one is a foreigner.
Nine of the sixteen hail from Nairobi, five from Mombasa and one from Homa Bay County.
The age range of the new cases is 23 to 84 years.
Kenya also registered seven new recoveries, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 60. Two more people died of the disease, bringing the total deaths to 13.
In terms of the distribution of all the 262 confirmed cases, patients aged between 0 to 14 years, are eight (3%), 15 to 19 years are 70 (26.7%), 30 to 59 years are 164 (62.6%), and 60 years and above are 20 (7.6%). Out of the 262 confirmed cases, 236 (90%) are Kenyans, whereas the remaining 26 (10%) are foreigners.
In terms of county distribution, Nairobi leads with 193 cases (73.7%), followed by Mombasa with 43 cases (16.4%), Kilifi 8 (3%), Mandera 6 (2.3%), Kajiado, Nakuru, Siaya and Kitui with 2 cases each, Kwale, Uasin-Gishu, Kakaemga and Homa Bay have a case each.
Nairobi, being the hardest-hit region in Kenya when it comes to COVID-19 infections, the minister went ahead to reveal the distribution of cases in respective estates in the capital city.
Upmarket Nairobi neighbourhood, Kilimani, has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the commercial capital – 6.
Pipeline area in Eastlands has 5 confirmed cases, Kawangware (3), Karen (4), South C (4), Utawala (4), Mlolongo (1), Eastleigh (1) — an Imam who died.
Other estates to have registered COVID-19 infections include: Buruburu (2), Tassia (2), Kitisuru (2), Parklands (2), Kibra (2), Donholm (1), Hurlingham (1), Lavington (1), Runda (1), Ngara (1), Madaraka (1), Kasarani (1), among others.
“I want to plead with all of us to take the [anti-COVID-19] measures we have announced more seriously,” said Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe in a press briefing at Afya House on Saturday, April 18.
