The World Health Organisation has stated that there is a "low risk of transmission" of the Ebola virus from air travel. Kenya Airways agrees. The Ministry of Health agrees. The Ministry of the Interior agrees. So all are agreed that the focus is on dealing with the aftermath of an infection in Kenya; they are not really concerned about an infiltration of the virus into Kenya through its border crossings. So the Ministry of Health has asked for slightly more than half-a-billions shillings and it is sending fact-finding teams of doctors to West Africa. It has set aside a quarantine ward at the Kenyatta National Hospital. And it is assuring us that together with the Ministry of the Interior, it is vetting all visitors into Kenya to ensure that no visitor introduces the virus in Kenya.
Just like during the World Cup, save in a few passionate locales, the interest in whether there is or there is not an Ebola outbreak in Kenya is pretty limited. Kenyans are still hanging out, after a fashion, in nyama choma joints, eating meat of dubious provenance and quaffing unquantifiable amounts of unlicensed alcoholic beverages without a care in the world. In other words, regardless of the Ebola threat, Migingos in Kenya's "informal" settlements are doing roaring business, under the noses of the forces of law and order deployed by the Ministry of the Interior I might add, and apparently invisible to the Ministry of Health's Public Health Officers.
Matters that should concentrate our minds, like the steadily upwards trajectory of the cost of food, energy, healthcare and education - and Ebola, of course - have been abandoned for the noise and heat of the political discourse, such as it is. Hundreds of thousands of Kenyans are daily glued to their TV screens for the day's political entertainment. The ruinous "debate" over the referendum has blinded us to the realities: CORD and Jubilee have little incentive to allow debate on matters that have real-world impacts on our lives. Baba Moi called it "Siasa za pesa nane." Baba Jimmi might have called the two coalitions "Pumbavu" without batting an eyelid.
If there is one thing that the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa tells it is that we have lost all sense of proportion, shame and logic. If the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior ever had a plan for the control of infectious diseases, that plan has not been dusted for a generation at least. Pravin Bowry recently examined the statutory and regulatory framework for controlling infectious diseases and highlighted the constitutional constraints that the Public Health Act would face. It is almost certain that Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia and his mandarins, in their zeal to boost their budget, have not published their strategy to deal with the Ebola threat, but instead they have asked the National Treasury to set aside almost six hundred million shillings for the activity and enlisted ill-informed parliamentarians in their quest. That is not money they will be sharing with Interior Cabinet Secretary Ole Lenku, whose Ministry cannot explain how eight billion shillings has disappeared.
Kenyans have had the wool pulled over their eyes by the political theatre. So few of us are conscious of the risks that the Ebola virus pose to the general population. Our experiences with the health facilities in Kenya, whether public or private, has not been salutary unless one was willing to lay down hundreds of thousands of shillings for a certain quality of care. But even then, the money may not guarantee quality healthcare. Politics consumes our every hour of thought. Risks abound that we do not seem to care for. If there is an outbreak, bar some unforeseen circumstances, the elite that has pulled the wool over our eyes will board their private jets or sit in first class as they flee the melee. I can see Mr Macharia and Mr Lenku hiding behind their GSU bodyguard. And I can see the chaos visited on Liberia being visited on Kenya.
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