Uhuru Signs Executive Order, Sets Up Coronavirus Taskforce

President Kenyatta, through an Executive Order, has established a taskforce to coordinate Kenya’s preparedness, prevention and response to the threat of coronavirus.

The 21-member team comprises Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries in the ministries of Health, Defense, Transport, Foreign Affairs, and ICT.

Other members include Council of Governors chair Wycliffe Oparanya and directors-general of Medical Services, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Kenya Airports Authority, and Immigration.

The taskforce is expected to coordinate Kenya’s response, enhance surveillance at all ports of entry, as well as manage the supply of testing kits and medical products such as masks and protective gear.

They will also oversee the setting up of national, county and private isolation and treatment facilities across the country before March 15th. Kenyatta also ordered the team to ensure an isolation center is set up at Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi within seven days.

“Kenya is a major international transport hub, with 70 percent of international passengers in transit, and there is a significant threat arising from the spread of the coronavirus to Kenya from countries that have new and ongoing outbreaks of the pneumatic disease,” Uhuru said in the Executive Order issued on Friday.

The virus, which originated in China’s Wuhan city, has claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and continues to spread to different countries. More than 80,000 people have so far contracted the disease.