Sep 22, 2020(Nyamilepedia) — Kenyan ministry of health has issued new guidelines for burying Covid 19 victims.
The cabinet assistant secretary (CAS) of MOH, Dr Mercy Mwangangi, said that there is no need for the ministry of health to send its officials in full personal protective equipment which scares the funeral attendees.
The families can now participate in the burial rights so long as the officials from the ministry of health are present.
“Families will now take the center stage at burial ceremonies. Family members will be allowed to conduct safe burial rites according to their norms, cultural and religious beliefs,” she said.
Unlike how the ministry was handling the body with full personal protective equipment (PPE), now the family will be advised on how to handle the deceased.
She said this will help to uphold the dignity of the deceased.
Dr. Mercy Mwangangi added that from the new information emerging is that, the transmission from a dead body is unlikely.
Also, there is a new way of double wrapping the body so as to contain any virus from escaping.
However, the ministry clarified that some traditional practices like washing of the body, body viewing at home or kissing of the deceased are still banned.
All this was announced during the Covid 19 daily briefings where she stated that Kenya has reported 139 new covid 19 infections from a sample size of 1774 in the last 24 hours to bring the total number of confirmed cases to 37, 218.
She also announced 9 more covid deaths making the total number of fatalities 659.
On the brighter side, 198 patients have recovered from the virus where 46 were from home-based care and 152 from hospitals around the country.
The tally for recoveries is now at 24,147.
