Kenya’s hospitals are full of Covid patients – many unvaccinated, by choice

Four patients arrive, desperately in need of a bed in an intensive care unit, but there are none.

Without an intensive care bed, their chances of survival are not good.

Fear of the vaccine

Most Mount Kenya patients are not vaccinated – not because they did not have access to a vaccine, but because, in most cases, they chose not to take it.

“When you ask why they haven’t received the jab, some of them are told that it is not available. Others – the majority – they are afraid to have it, because they have heard talk about the problems, ”says Eudiah. Wang’ombe, the hospital clinician who runs the facility.

People have also heard stories of vaccinated people getting sick or even dying after receiving the vaccine.

“This is not true, I am on the ground. Those people who have died so far have not received anything … There is a lot of misinformation,” Wang’ombe said.

Even with each available dose, it would be sufficient to inoculate approximately 3.5% of the population. But even if the supply problems slowly abate, vaccine reluctance quickly emerges as a very serious problem.

Along a busy street of Painful town, everyone is masked – it’s the law in Kenya – and street vendors sell masks and hand sanitizer along with their usual assortment of clothes and knick-knacks.

Selling the vaccine, however, is a more difficult task and misinformation is rife.

The early stigma surrounding the virus, denial, general misinformation, and some traditional beliefs all contribute to unhealthy skepticism about the healthcare system and vaccines. Misinformation, spread mostly through word of mouth, has been a challenge for the government, as health officials plead with citizens to get vaccinated during regular televised briefings on Covid-19.

“We’ve heard that Kenya is making vaccines against Covid-19, that’s why we’re scared. They don’t even know how to make matchboxes or even toothpicks,” says Jane Wangari Kahemu, a mask seller.

The Kenyan government has a long-term plan to produce its own vaccines, but it is still a long way off.

Kahemu would take the vaccine, if she knew for sure it was American, she said.

“Why should I take something that I don’t know what will do to my body?” Another salesperson asks, holding his baby in his arms.

His colleague agrees. “Yes, and I say ‘IF’ with capital letters, if we understand, we can maybe do it, but for now it’s no!”

A boon for casket makers

Along a dusty road, a stone’s throw from the local morgue, a small black hearse is parked in front of a gang of coffin vendors. Lately it’s been a hive of activity.

Outside, a group of young men cut, sand, coat and paint an array of coffins of different shapes and sizes as quickly as they can.

Before the pandemic, they were making less than one coffin a day.

Now each man is supposed to earn three a day and they can’t keep up with the demand, forcing the owner to recruit more casket makers.

Before the pandemic, they made less than one coffin a day, sometimes just one a week. Now each man has to make three coffins a day – and the owner has hired his regular staff twice to keep up with the demand.

“The workload is too heavy for us now,” said Joseph Mureithi, 34, a coffin builder. “We are working on a very tight schedule and we can even say that we are suffering from fatigue at the moment.”

He says many hesitant people just don’t know enough about it, but he thinks more and more people are starting to seek out the vaccine because so many people are dying from the virus.

“Unless you see the impact of something, you won’t take it seriously,” he said, standing over an unfinished coffin he had just started plastering.

Yet many of Mureithi’s colleagues still say they wouldn’t take the vaccine if offered to them.

Dennis Maina, a 24-year-old in jeans and a camouflage trucker cap, is one of them.

“A lot of people, they don’t die from the virus, they die from some other disease,” he says. He adds that some of the families who bought the coffins told him their loved one was vaccinated.

He adds that some of the families who bought the coffins told him their loved ones were vaccinated.

‘Say situation’

“Yes, I admit it, the situation is dire. We’ve never been here before,” Nyeri County Governor Mutahi Kahiga told CNN from the driveway of his well-maintained, gated property on the outskirts of town.

Not only do hospitals turn patients away, many people don’t see a doctor until it’s too late.

“This is a clear indication to you that our people are self-medicating at home. And it’s dangerous. Because by the time you get to the hospital, you run out of oxygen, your oxygen levels are too low. . We don’t have enough oxygen and we could end up losing you, ”Kahiga said.

Nyeri, a largely rural area with a population of less than one million, has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, at 6.2% of adults, just behind Nairobi.

Despite this, the governor says more than a third of police officers, teachers and the elderly who received the first dose of the vaccine did not return for the second.

“We have more than 40 tribes, with different traditions, beliefs and taboos “, Kahiga said. “I think with Covid-19 some of us are still in denial, they are still clinging to the traditional beliefs that run across Africa… that’s why maybe we are where we are.”

At the moment, the county has only 1,000 doses of the vaccine – to be distributed to 28 vaccination sites. The central government will not send more until they have all been used.

“Death can convince me. If it can keep me from dying, hopefully, then I’d rather take it.”