Kenya’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic: a balance between minimising morbidity and adverse economic impact

Wangari, Edwin N.; Gichuki, Peter; Abuor, Angelyne A.; Wambui, Jacqueline; Okeyo, Stephen O.; Oyatsi, Henry T.N.; Odikara, Shadrack; Kulohoma, Benard W.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has ravaged the world’s socioeconomic systems forcing many governments across the globe to implement unprecedented stringent mitigation measures to restrain its rapid spread and adverse effects. A disproportionate number of COVID-19 related morbidities and mortalities were predicted to occur in Africa. However, Africa still has a lower than predicted number of cases, 4% of the global pandemic burden. In this open letter, we highlight some of the early stringent countermeasures implemented in Kenya, a sub-Saharan African country, to avert the severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These mitigation measures strike a balance between minimising COVID-19 associated morbidity and fatalities and its adverse economic impact, and taken together have significantly dampened the pandemic’s impact on Kenya’s populace.