THE GOVERNMENT’S OVERREACTION TO MUKUMU GIRLS EPIDEMIC SMACKS OF A MASSIVE COVER-UP OPERATION
Early this week, KUPPET dispatched a team of medical experts to Mukumu Girls High School in Kakamega County where four students and a teacher have died while more than 600 students, teachers and workers were hospitalised with a yet-unidentified ailment.
The expert team, which was reinforced by our partners from the doctors’ union, held consultations with the school administration, teachers, other staff and local KUPPET officials. They also reviewed investigative reports by the Public Health Department and the County Education Board.
The official report form the Ministry of Health indicates that the outbreak at Mukumu Girls was caused by Enterotoxigenic E. coli and Samonella typhi, an indication that water ingested by the students at the school were contaminated with these micro-organisms.
Based on the team’s findings, the union has made the following four determinations on the disease outbreak and government response to date:
- The cause of this disease and the deaths has not been conclusively established. There are claims that the school compromised on the public health report on the suitability of the water in the school. Scientific tests are needed on the safety of the school’s water systems. We await the post-mortem results and more expert investigations for greater insights into the disease.
- The outbreak of the disease characterised by fever, cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea seems to go beyond Mukumu Girls. Other schools from Kakamega, Bungoma, and Vihiga Counties have reported similar symptoms in students, leading to the closure of the institutions.
- Rather than systematically addressing an emerging epidemic, the government is engaged in a massive operation to cover up evident gaps in school health, contrary to policy. The forcible retirement of the school principal, Madam Fridah Ndolo, and dissolution of the Board of Management smack of a cover-up effort. Sending sick students home before the disease is properly understood could potentially transmit an epidemic to communities.
- Instead of kneejerk reactions, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Hon Ezekiel Machogu, should convene a multi-agency team to review compliance with the Kenya School Health Policy 2018, which provides guidelines on ensuring healthy environments in learning institutions.
Among the main goals of the Kenya School Health Policy is managing access to water, sanitation and hygiene. The Policy recognises the right of all learners to safe and clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. This is to ensure disease prevention and control in schools.
Circumstantial evidence total non-compliance with this Policy at Mukumu Girls High School. Our team observed that the water that is being used in the school is stored in an underground tank, close to which runs a sewer line. The possibility of sewer contaminating water in the tank due to sewer seepage is very high.
Secondly, with 2,028 students, Mukumu Girls High School is clearly overpopulated. Learning resources and other facilities are strained. This is attributable to the government policy of 100% transition from primary school to secondary school. Uncontrolled sharing of resources due to the scarcity of the same plays a critical role in disease transmission in the event of an outbreak.
In such an environment, where resources are strained, putting in place systems to prevent transmission of communicable diseases, morbidity and mortality can be a very big challenge for the school management.
Recognising this, the Kenya School Health Policy Implementation document charges the Ministry of Health with the responsibility to “Provide technical advice on the required health standards including infrastructure, water and sanitation facilities in schools.”
The same ministry cannot come back and tell us that water was contaminated. The Directorate of Public Health must account for the negligence by its officers in such a scenario. The Directorate must answer the question of whether it has systems in place (including resources and manpower) to conduct routine public health checks in our schools.
Since this disease outbreak has been reported at Buture Boys High in Kakamega County and Khasoko Boys Secondary School in Bungoma, there clearly is a systemic lapse in the public health surveillance as opposed to failure by the school administration in adhering to public health guidelines.
Punishing Madam Ndolo only serves to undermine efforts to find lasting solutions to the problem over which she had no control. Regrettably, her forcible retirement fits in a pattern where our hard-working principals are used as sacrificial lambs to assuage public anger at the whiff of any malfunction in the school system regardless of the enormity of the situation.
KUPPET calls upon the Ministries of Education and Health to account for their responsibilities under the Kenya School Health Policy 2018. In case the Minister is unaware, the MOE’s Quality Assurance Directorate is in a sorry state, crippled by contradictory policies that have rendered the established standards useless.
A key example is the government’s policy on 100 percent transition from primary to secondary schools. The increased numbers have upended most existing guidelines on school establishment and health and safety policies. Before using the sledgehammer on the victims of the Ministry’s dysfunction, Hon Machogu must clean his office first and ensure that his Quality Assurance officers understand and are accountable for their work.
In the same vein, we urge the Teachers Service Commission to defend the rights of its employees from political fiat.
Amid the huge misfortune that has befallen the Mukumu Girls community, we urge politicians to exercise restraint and avoid inflaming the people’s passions. We take great exception to comments by the Senator for Kakamega, Hon Bonny Khalwale, who has repeatedly misdirected his ire from the county government to an innocent principal.
For the avoidance of doubt, water services are a devolved function. For that matter, the construction and maintenance of sewer systems in Mukumu Girls High School is a responsibility of the Kakamega County Government. Madam Ndolo had no power whatsoever over sewer systems developed by the county government.
To achieve disease prevention and control in schools, routine school inspection should be allocated more resources. Laboratory investigation of keys public health concerns should be part of routine school inspection. Capacity building for both the school community and the public health professionals need to be treated as a priority area to enhance disease surveillance and reporting.
