 Thank you for joining us on Y254 news updates. My name is Patricia Moriuki. Tonight we get to talk about the coronavirus that has become a global disaster. We're going to be talking about understanding COVID-19 and to help us talk about this topic tonight, we have Dr. Samrat Shahu is the consultant physician and the medical director of Medihil Hospitals. And before we start this, I'd like to ask our viewers, if you have any questions that you'd like the doctor to answer before our show ends, please make sure that you talk to us on our social media platforms. That is on Y254 channel, on Facebook and Y254 channel on Twitter. You can also reach me at Patricia Moriuki. So, Dr. Samrat, thank you very much for finding the time to join us tonight to talk about the coronavirus because I could say that we might or may not be taking these virus seriously as we need to do. So, my first question to you tonight would be, what is, we've all had it, we've seen it in the media, we've seen it's trending on social media, the coronavirus and the damage that it has managed to do so far, but what is coronavirus, what is COVID-19? COVID-19 is basically a virus, it's an infection of animals. It was not an infection of human beings. When we talk about coronavirus, coronavirus is a disease which is very commonly seen in children causing flu. But this is a new strain of coronavirus which is called as COVID-19. It is called 19 because it started in the year of 2019. So, this virus is usually seen in animals and then it was transmitted from animals to humans after a mutation and after an intake of meat as it is known everywhere. So now when it affects the human beings, this is a disease which causes flu-like symptoms, which causes sore throat-like symptoms, which causes pneumonia, basically respiratory symptoms, and then now it spreads by droplets. Droplets by droplets I mean it spreads when you cough, it spreads when you sneeze. We are talking about hand wash and sanitizers, then how is it related to coughing and sneezing? When you cough and sneeze, the droplets will go and settle down around 1 meter of your distance, they will go and settle down on some place. So now when I go and touch that surface area, then the virus is transmitted around my hands. Now because human beings have a habit of touching the hands on your face, your eyes, nose and mouth, and this is the place from where this virus enters inside your body, and then it causes infection. That's the reason why we are telling people to sanitize hands regularly so that they can kill those viruses present in the hands and does not transmit that infection to us. I like that you've mentioned about the symptoms of the virus, which we've talked about, Hakof, you've talked about a sore throat, you've talked about fever. But we know that someone could experience these same symptoms if they are suffering from some bedifference or even a normal flu or a normal cough. So once I get to experience these symptoms, do I try home treatment and maybe self quarantine myself or do I immediately show up at a testing center and have myself checked? You see, there are two differences between common cold and coronavirus. When we talk about common cold, they usually present with running nose. They have allergic kind of sneezing, wearing the sneezing is more when exposed to closed, when there is exposure to cold or the sneezing is more early in the mornings when the temperature has bit lower side. That's more in common cold where they have running nose, when they have sore throat, when they have myalgia. But when we talk about corona, when we talk about COVID-19, they present with fever. 90% of population with COVID-19, they have fever. Then the next symptom they have is dry cough. Then the third symptom very commonly seen is breathing difficulty. If you have fever, if you are having cough, if you are having breathing difficulty, no matter whether you have exposure to the COVID-19 infected person or not, no matter whether you have traveled or not, now it is a pandemic. Now you need not sit yourself and thinking that I am not being exposed to anyone. You never know whether you have been exposed or not because it spreads by droplet. You never know somebody coughed and went, the particles are there, you touch that particle, you never know. So any person who is having fever, cough and breathing difficulty should immediately reach the hospital and notify the hospital that I am having these kind of symptoms. We do a chest x-ray and see there are certain findings for chest x-ray. If all these things are together, you should be tested for COVID-19. Okay. So we've had cases in other parts of the country, of the world whereby people have had the virus, they have tested positive for the virus without any symptoms showing. So being in Kenya, we so far have seven cases from four cases yesterday. How now do we know that probably there is no more than what we have because if there are people testing positive and there are no symptoms, what if we have people out there who have no symptoms at all and they are not showing up? What do we think we should do? You see, there are many people I feel wherein who have COVID-19 but have not been tested because the testing facility available with us is very less. In fact, there is only one center which is testing for COVID-19 in the entire country and that makes it more vulnerable for having less number of cases being detected. The seven number what we are seeing, I don't think so it's the number which is accurate because there may be so many people who have been exposed to those seven people and then the local transmission must have already been started. So for those people who are asymptomatic, they should be tested only if they have history of travel to a country which is affected by COVID-19. As of now that should be the concern but today when it is a pandemic, when there is a local transmission, I believe anyone who is having fever, cough or breathing difficulty should be tested for COVID-19. Irrespective of whether there is a travel history or not, irrespective of whether there is a contact history or not, they need to be tested. Okay, you've said that I've been one isolation center or sorry, I've been one testing center is not enough, especially during now that the virus is really becoming something that many countries have been unable to really deal with. How many centers do you think are right for us that we should have in fact I feel every county should have a testing facility and every person who is having fever, cough and breathing difficulty should be tested for COVID-19 irrespective of travel history or contact history. Okay, so how is coronavirus, how is it transmitted or how is it spread from one person to the other? And you've talked about if the virus finds its way on a surface, we'd also like to know how long does it last Yeah, on that surface. See, there was a study which was conducted in China and this study showed that on the steel materials or any material for copper material, it can stay up to 6 to 8 hours on that surface. But there are some studies which are coming up and telling that the droplets can be there in the aerosol or the droplets can be there on the materials for even 16 to 17 hours. So there is no proven theory about it because it's a new strain we are learning every day but as of now it is 6 to 8 hours. Okay, so when we talk about preventing measures we've talked about washing your hands we've talked about sanitizing. The government has said that every public transport should make sure that there are sanitizes which I can say I have not yet seen which probably puts Kenya at risk but when we talk about measures preventive measures to make sure that you don't get to the virus do I need to wear a mask? Can a mask help us wearing gloves? Because we've seen certain people in the country going for the mask and going for the gloves. Does it really protect me from getting the virus? You see wearing mask is nowhere written in WHO guidelines as a protective measure for coronavirus. For COVID-19 it is very clearly mentioned by CDC as well that any person who is coughing was sneezing or having secretions. He is the one who is supposed to wear the mask. Everyone in public has to wear the mask but gloves I would definitely say yes you should try to wear gloves as much as possible because people are buying masks but not buying gloves. Mask should be bought by someone who is having cough and sneezing but gloves should be worn because you never know who has coughed where and what surface you are touching. I think that should be the most important thing to be done first thing. Apart from that preventive measures sanitizers there is a long queue there is no sanitizer available in the country it's all out of stock but I feel instead of sanitizers even if you wash your hands regularly with soap and water that's going to be as effective as sanitizers. At least 20 seconds make sure that in running water you wash your hands with soap and water I think that's more than enough to be done after everything you touch or every possible suspected thing you do you make sure that you wash your hands with soap and water Apart from that using sanitizers which have alcohol percent of more than 60 is more than enough to be used as a preventive measure. If you are having symptoms of fever, cough and breathing difficulty if it is mild symptom in the form of just fever and sore throat even then I would request people that you self isolate yourself even if you don't have history of breathing difficulty whether you don't have history of travel or contact you still try to self isolate yourself for at least 14 days because you never know whether you have COVID-19 or not. So if possible you should self isolate. Now what do you mean by self isolate is you should be staying in a separate room where your washrooms are separate where the materials you are using are separate it should not happen that you are using a common phone and that phone is given to someone else because you never know you may be transmitting the phone viruses on the phone. So as much as possible communication with the society communication with family members should be avoided all the food materials should be stocked separately for that room for 14 days so much as possible everything should be isolated for that person and avoid public contact that's what we mean by self isolation I like that you have mentioned that you should use a separate washroom it's supposed to use probably a separate phone as much as you are talking about the virus and the damage and everything that is happening right now in the world when you look at our country how many households really have two washrooms how many people are able to have a house whereby you can have a certain part whereby Patricia has experienced all these let us put Patricia in a certain corner of the house so how do we now as Kenyans put into practice self isolation because I believe living in an apartment you have probably if you have to put your clothes on the rooftop you have to go there and just do that you may find yourself mingling with people on the streets or on the corridors exactly do we mean by self isolation especially considering our state as a country very true as a state of our country we cannot afford to do all these things practically it is impossible to be done that's the reason why I am more worried about the country because it's going to be a disaster because the state of the country the economic crisis what we have we cannot afford COVID-19 that's a fact we should know because we cannot afford malaria deaths we cannot afford TB death how are we going to afford deaths from COVID-19 we are not able to combat with the diseases which we have since a long time so I think for such kind of things the government should start having isolation centers in every nook and corner of the country so that such kind of people are isolated there should be isolation centers as of now we don't have such kind of centers but at least I would request people that as much as possible avoid contact with people if possible make sure that you wear a mask make sure that you sanitize your hands every surface you are touching make sure that that is clean with at least open water or with alcohol based sanitizers we are going to be taking a very short break on Y254 but don't go far away we have more on COVID-19 when we come back thank you very much for staying with us on Y254 news and if you are just joining us we are talking about understanding COVID-19 we have just talked about what exactly is COVID-19 we have talked about the symptoms we have talked about the preventive measures that have been set up before we continue the discussion I would like us to take a question we have Nick Mwenda asking if the virus can't survive at a temperature of above 27 degrees Celsius how does it survive in the human body you see the virus is heat resistant virus we have said that this virus cannot survive in hot climates especially in Africa now we see the coronavirus is there in Middle East it's there in Dubai it's there in Singapore they are the places where the temperature is going up to 35 degrees centigrade so it's heat resistant I don't think so heat can having humid temperature or climate of hot climates are going to kill this but yes one study proved that temperature of more than 50 degrees can kill the virus Lauri Naomi was asking for instance you get the coronavirus when you are in the rural areas what should you do if you are in up country and you realize that probably you have the symptoms let's not say coronavirus because for you to have the virus you have to be tested so if you are in up country and you realize that you have the symptoms what you do see KNH and government facilities have given helpline numbers to all the hospitals for that matter what has been told by the government facilities is you reach to the nearest healthcare facility the healthcare facility people will contact the respected authority people who has been assigned for COVID-19 then it has been told that those people can ask you certain more questions and then if it is suspected case of COVID-19 they are going to come take the samples from the patient and then going to test it if it is positive they are going to isolate the patients so far we have recovered cases worldwide but can you construct the virus twice see this is still a question mark because this is a new strain but one thing which has come up right now few days back was a study proved that even if you are cured there are chances that for the next 2 weeks you can still give this infection to people so some studies say that even after getting cured you should be isolating yourself for at least 2 weeks from that so if I have the virus I have been isolated and I have recovered from the virus and I have been released to go home how long does the protection like the protection that probably the treatment as much as it has no cure but for you to get to the recovery part there are probably certain measures that have been taken by the clinical people so how long does the protection cover that's what they have told that you should be isolated for at least next 2 weeks and there are no cases being reported that wherein the COVID-19 has reinfected again for till date there are no cases reported so we don't know much about it but I think based on the scenario current scenario what we have more than 100,000 people being affected with it not even one case having a reinfection so we can still believe that there is no reinfection chances because it's a viral infection we'll still consider it as having an humility so what are the risk factors are people probably with underline medical conditions at a higher risk maybe is there a certain gender is there a certain age is there a certain group of people who are at a higher risk of getting the virus you see based on all the deaths what we have seen based on all the mortalities what we have seen it was seen that people more than age of 60 and people who are diabetic who are having blood pressure who are having kidney failures who are having cancers these are the kind of people who are vulnerable to have severe form of COVID-19 can develop pneumonia who may have deaths but apart from that no deaths have been still reported in age less than 10 it is being found that COVID-19 infection goes in a milder form of disease in younger generations and then it recovers after 2 weeks would you say as citizens as Kenyan citizens has the government has the ministry of health are we taking this virus serious as we are supposed to be taking no I think the seriousness among the people as well as the officials has not been that as much as what is expected because having self isolation is something which can be a dangerous situation because you cannot trust people see we are living in a country where people believe that African genetics will not get COVID-19 we see people telling us because I am a Muslim will not get COVID-19 we see youths telling us that because I am a youth I am going to have milder form of disease so why should I worry but the bigger thing which is lacking here is lack of awareness that even if the youth is going to get a milder form of symptoms he can give this disease to someone who is vulnerable to have a severe form of disease who can die because of the youth so I think youth should be more serious about it the government should start taking it more seriously and lock down the entire country because we have 7 cases detected now self quarantine should be stopped and supervised quarantine should be started any person entering to the country from the country having even one case of COVID-19 should be isolated under supervision and not self quarantine so far in the country we have not had any local transmissions they have all been international because every person has come from abroad the new cases that are confirmed today among them is a couple from Spain and Aburijan was in Dubai how can now the government what can the government or what ministry of health do to control and make sure that we don't get to the point whereby we can hear someone in Murangas someone in Meru, someone in Kisumu as the virus see the first thing what the government should do is every county should have a testing facility see unless and until you have a testing facility there is no point in having hospital for that matter because if you don't test there is no point you are going to get to know about their COVID-19 there should be testing facility in every county if you have an isolation ward an isolation unit an emergency team setting to help these COVID-19 positive cases no person should be allowed whether it is citizen or it is non-citizen to enter inside country if they are coming from COVID-19 affected countries even if they are coming inside the country they should be isolated for at least 14 days ok, I would like to take another question from Karostanis who is asking is there any possibility without any cure? cure is still not there unfortunately every part of the world is trying to have some measures to cure this there are so many fake articles coming out that this is the cure, this is the cure but none of them have been approved by WHO but American government has started testing for vaccines they have tested already on 3 people in America but even then this year we are not supposed likely to have any kind of vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 tested treatment or vaccine is supposed to be July 2021 ok, we have faith carries asking how long should pass on self quarantine themselves? 14 days ok, how do we protect children below the age of 1 year from getting the virus? children below 1 year the first thing to be done is the entire family should be very careful about it because you never know whether the child has it or not, the child is going to get it from parents the entire family is very serious about COVID-19 make sure that you isolate yourself if you are having COVID-19 avoid, if you have symptoms of COVID-19 avoid going near to the baby even breastfeeding should be avoided as much as possible because you may have symptoms of COVID-19 you may transmit that to the baby as well so how do I protect myself now? yeah, so to protect yourself if you are having these symptoms then you have to isolate, if you don't have symptoms make sure that you maintain yourself hygiene have hand sanitization and washing your hands wearing mask if you are having cough and cold avoiding outing in public areas make sure that you don't shake your hands we have habit of shaking hands I think avoiding handshake should be the first thing to be done avoid going in public gatherings any place where there are 50 people and above we should be avoiding going there ok, so we've talked about the new cases that have just been announced today by the minister of health should we really as a country still be going to work, should we still be seeing the congestion that you are still seeing in CBD is it safe? I don't think so, it's very safe I feel very risky about seeing those states on the road because as much as possible we should try to work from home public gatherings should be avoided there are some places where there are even people working on shift where people go out at 6 o'clock and then the next lot comes in at 6 o'clock when you have so many people coming and going out at one point of time that's also very much dangerous so I think if you are not able to avoid coming people to workplace at least you should change the shift timings 5 o'clock people should go out, 6 o'clock people should come in so that at least we have one hour of gap between those people crossing over as much as possible such things should be done motatos are not very serious about it that's the big dangerous thing what we have there's no sanitizers there's no public transport I can confidently say there's none I look for one and couldn't find it but now when we talk about there's a lot of panic, there's a lot of fear among us people so how do we control how do we make sure that people don't panic and think of different or very bad thoughts or making sure that as much as we are going through this disaster we manage to remain calm and to also be very vigilant you see more than corona it is the fear virus which is spreading I guess so I want to tell people that 80% of people they get cured with corona even if you have corona virus infection because the way we see the number of people being affected in Italy more than 25,000 people affected but the death rate is around 500 to 600 so the death rate is not as high as we are worried about that I should not be cautious what is supposed to be done by us should be done by us we are having international patients coming up with COVID-19 it is a duty of all the citizens of the country that we prevent local transmission by taking all the words given by his excellency seriously and start doing things as it has been told and avoid neglecting COVID-19 remove these things from the mind that I am an African, I am a Muslim I am a Kikyu, I am not going to get COVID-19 COVID-19 does not come and check which race, caste and sex you belong to before it comes to you so make sure that you take COVID-19 very seriously, take precautions what is required for you but do not panic, be calm because panicking is not going to help by any way your final thoughts, your final advice to people watching us tonight you could use that camera what is your final advice on these COVID-19 what would you want the people at home to do better they want to tell youth that please take this very seriously COVID-19 is not something which can be taken as a joke even if you get a common form milder form of disease you may give it to someone who may have a death so please make sure that you if you have symptoms you isolate yourself do not roam around in public avoid public gatherings as much as possible make sure that you wear a face mask if you are having cough or sneezing make sure that you sanitize your hands regularly after everything you use avoid public gatherings that's the first thing which I want to tell and if you have symptoms, please take it very seriously reach the healthcare facility as soon as possible so that you are tested for COVID-19 do not be scared of COVID-19 because I have seen people in OPD coming and telling us if I am tested they isolate me and then I am going to die that's not going to happen there are chances of survival in more than 80% of cases there are chances that you may also save the community and country please take it seriously and start taking them as soon as possible ok, thank you very much Dr. Samrat for finding the time to come and talk to us about that so if you have been watching us tonight please make sure that everything that the doctors said everything that you have heard from the Cabinet Secretary of Health everything that the president of the Republic of Kenya said we should observe please make sure that you do that so that we will all work together in making sure that we fight coronavirus before winding up I would like to say that if you have any information there is a code that has been provided for people you can tell star 719 Ash which is going to give you details about the virus let us not stay and not know what this virus is I would like to challenge every person to be aware of what coronavirus is and may you take it upon yourself to protect yourself and to protect your neighbors that is all we have for you tonight we are going to make sure that we are updated on everything that happens Thank you very much My name is Patricia Morioki, do of yourselves a very good night