We are entering a new phase in the fight against the rampant coronavirus, in which the burden of public health management will increasingly fall on the county governments. As such, I believe an initial assessment of how the central government has performed thus far in addressing this same challenge may be in order. Let us start by considering what the key public health challenges in Kenya were, in what we must now consider to be “the pre-Covid era”. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but it does serve to illustrate the fact that effective public health policy in the pre-Covid era focused on maternal and child health; and then on malaria, TB and HIV-Aids. In pre-Covid-19 times, effective county public health policy required a focus on mothers and children, and an operating theatre for caesarean sections was the biggest investment that many counties made.

Source: The Star July 16, 2020 01:52 UTC