Medical doctors and practitioners have raised concerns over what appears to be a new wave of the covid 19 virus as patients are now presenting new symptoms compared to the usual fever and dry cough.
” patients are now showing a myriad of new symptoms aside from the usual dry cough, high fever and shortness of breath. One of the things we have noticed is that patients are coming in with the difficulty in breathing with no fever at all and by the time they are admitted a majority of them require Intensive Care,” said Dr Andrew Giche the chief medical officer at Kenyatta National Hospital. K.N.H
” some of the other rare symptoms seen include diarrhoea, vomiting, and occasionally a rash. Discolouration though not to commonly seen maybe because of the affecting by covid 19 which form clots,” said Dr Loise Ombajo, infectious diseases at KNH.
“Even in the country we have had a few variants, it’s only that they have not been of concern, but whether a specific or different variants lead to a different set of symptoms, I’m still not very sure about that. I think that’s an area that will be of significant interest as time goes by and an area of study, ”she added
“Could we be dealing with a new virus or what? scientifically, is called a new mutant of the virus. These are the questions we need our scientists to tell us. We need to be very careful about this virus, we’re not yet out of the woods.” Stated Dr Andrew Giche.
The doctors and medical practitioners are calling for extreme caution as the number of infected people gradually rises. On Monday 337 people tested positive for the virus bringing the total of confirmed cases to 109,164 three more deaths raising the death toll to 1,879, while total recoveries reached 87,623 as of yesterday.
Kenya is currently vaccinating its frontline workers after receiving over 1 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on the 3rd of March. The country expects to get 24 million doses within months.
