Uhuru: Kenya to evacuate students trapped in China

Kenya will evacuate its students trapped in Wuhan, the Chinese epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.

However, President Kenyatta said Nairobi was putting in place stringent measures to ensure the virus does not enter Kenya. 

“We are also working, to see how we can support them [students] and find out how they can be quarantined for the required 14 days and ensure they do not spread the virus,” President Kenyatta told a forum at the Atlantic Council, an American think-tank on foreign policy, business and politics in Washington.

At least 200 Kenyan students are based in Wuhan, the capital of Hebei Province in China.

The students had earlier complained of being neglected by authorities in Nairobi as the virus spreads.

We have to do everything we can to protect our citizens,” said the president.

“We have stopped our flights into Chinese cities, and there is no politics here, we don’t have capacity to build hospitals in seven days. So we must do everything within the limited resources to ensure that we keep this virus away,” he added.

China has had more than 10,000 cases of coronavirus infections with some 490 deaths reported. The virus, a type of respiratory infection that shows flu-like symptoms first emerged at the end of December.

 Its spread has seen various countries impose travel bans to China as well as suspend direct flights, even as Chinese authorities last week erected a hospital in seven days to treat the disease.