Four police officers and suspects under custody have tested positive for covid-19 at Kianyaga Police Station in Gichugu, Kirinyaga County sending stateninto panic.
The sick police officers include three male cops and one female while the 12 suspects are ten males and two females. One of the ten detainees is a minor in juvenile detention.
The police officer are being monitored in isolation at the Kerugoya Level Five Hospital but the detainees who tested positive are still being held in the cells, posing a serious health risk to the ones who are negative.
The cell has 25 others detainees and together upto 37 detainees are held up in a space where social distancing rule is impossible to observe. The officers the station have been waiting for action from the government of controversial Ann Waiguru in vain.
Just like week the outgoing Nairobi Police boss Philip Ndolo raised a concern over police cells turning into isolation centres in Nairobi.
“More than 20 suspects are isolated in various police stations in Nairobi after testing positive for Covid-19” he said.
The Nairobi regional police commander protested the situation saying they were forced to improvise separate cells to secure uninfected suspects to prevent the spread.
Many police stations across the country are facing challenges whenever they try to quarantine infected suspects in government isolation centres.
Ndolo blamed the disconnect among the Kenya Prison Service, the Judiciary and the Ministry of Health in the handling of Covid-19 suspects in police custody.
