Unicef Warns Kenya Against Nationwide school closures
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned against school closures as the omicron variant spreads across Kenya.
Most schools were closed for the Christmas holidays last week.
The warning was issued after it was discovered that 27 of the 34 samples sequenced were confirmed to be omicron variant.
UNICEF issued an immediate warning that school closures could be disastrous for children.
“The evidence is clear. Prolonged, nationwide school closures and lack of access to remote learning have wiped out decades of progress in education and rendered childhood unrecognisable. A shadow pandemic of child labour, child marriage and mental health issues has taken hold,” UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore said.
“Nationwide school closures should be avoided whenever possible. When Covid-19 community transmission increases and stringent public health measures become a necessity, schools must be the last places to close and the first to reopen.”
Kenya’s positivity rate has risen sharply in the last week, indicating that the country may be entering the fifth wave.
The positivity rate has been steadily increasing, and the number of Covid-19 cases has also been steadily increasing.
“The increase in cases infected with the variant and have no recent travel history suggests ongoing community transmission,” Kagwe said in a statement.
Unicef has warned that school closures could be disastrous for children as experts try to understand the variant.
According to data from the health ministry, the positivity rate was 10.6 per cent on Wednesday, with 799 people testing positive out of a sample size of 7,529.
The rate increased to 16.3 per cent on Thursday, 22.4 per cent on Friday, and 23% on Saturday.
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The government is now banking on vaccinating as many people as possible, with an estimated 8.8 million people vaccinated as of Friday.
More than 5.2 million Kenyans have been partially immunized, with 3.5 million fully immunized. The proportion of adults who have received all of their vaccines is 13%.
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