 |
| A health worker tests a hotel worker at KingFahad referral center in Lamu,The county has embarked on testing hotel workers a move that tourism chairman Abdalla Fadhil has said if erroneously recorded, there tourism sector will be adversely affected for wrong results urging the government to acertain the testing kits are not faulty |
Testing for hotel and health workers has started in Lamu County.
This is in line with the ministry of health guidelines as hoteliers prepare to have their operational.
According to Victor Tole county’s chief officer health services, testing is for hotel workers and health workers.
Tole went on to say that last week there were samples that were collected from a volunteer who had signs of covid-19.
The CO also added that even if the county has not recorded any positive case, they are waiting for the results of the volunteer who they tested last week.
“As a county we have started testing health workers and also hotel workers in line with the public health guidelines, this is to ensure that the hoteliers can go back to their business, for health workers is to ensure that they are safe and if infected, they can be quarantined” said Tole.
He also said that testing is done to the vulnerable and those in high risk to ensure that they are safe.
“There is no evidence of community transmission at the moment but we only want to ensure that our people know their status”The CO added.
Abdalla Fadhil chairman tourism caucus said that the testing might affect their business if one worker tests positive sating that the government would have first considered getting waiting to get testing kits that are not faulty citing that 75% of the testing kits internationally have given inaccurate results.
Fadhil also said that if a worker tests positive considering the tourists who come to the hotels, then it means there will be no tourist in that hotel thus closing down of the hotel since there will be zero business.
“We are skeptical as a sector since we do not know how the results might turn out, 75% of testing kits that have been used internationally have turned out to be faulty, if a worker tests positive considering where our tourists come from, then we will lose tourists courtesy to faulty kits” said Fadhil.
He also said that the government could have confirmed whether the kits are okey before embarking on large scale testing and who it will affect.”The government was supposed to first confirm the testing kits were ok before embarking on large scale testing, we don’t know who it will affect business-wise” Fadhil went on to say.
The caucus chairman added that with the negativity Lamu has always been in, if a positive case is reported, negative advertisement will affect the sector so much that:saying Lamu’s tourism sector is sensitive and fragile.
“We are crying for a sector that is too fragile and sensitive, is a positive case is erroneously reported absolutely Lamu will loose tourists to other counties, let the testing on workers be done when the government has ascertained that the testing kits are okey,there is no hurry”The chairman went on to say.
ends....
