Kakamega County chief of staff Robert Sumbi has succumbed to the Covid-19 disease.
Sumbi passed away on Thursday morning at the Lifecare Hospital in Bungoma where he had been transferred by the Kakamega County General Hospital after his condition deteriorated on Wednesday evening.
He is one of the county officials who have contracted the virus in recent days.
He was to undergo dialysis since he suffered kidney failure and could not be attended to at the general hospital, being Covid-19 positive.
“We had to move him to Bungoma where they would do both ICU and dialysis because our ICU here has other patients and moving him there could endanger patients with other ailments,” a doctor at the general hospital told the Star.
“His condition deteriorated while in Bungoma and he passed on at dawn.”
County staff flocked the general hospital on Thursday for Covid-19 tests after Governor Wycliffe Oparanya shut down the county headquarters following a surge in virus cases and ordered them to go for tests.
Sumbi served as county executive for environment and water between 2013 and 2017.
He was named chief of staff after Oparanya’s reelection in 2017.
Sumbi is one of the senior county executive and assembly staffers who have contracted the virus lately.
Kakamega had 316 cases out of which 57 were heath workers by Wednesday.
This is the highest number of Covid-19 cases since the first case was reported in Kenya in March.
Oparanya’s administration resolved to intensify adherence to the Covid-19 protocols and restrictions and ensure all learners in schools wear masks and observe social distancing.
Also banned are all political gatherings and church services that culminate into political rallies.
Oparanya said home-based care is encouraged to decongest the health facilities that have now been overstretched.
Oparanya said that sensitisation programmes on the virus will be intensified starting Thursday at the grassroots levels, involving chiefs and their assistants, County Government Administrators and medical personnel.
The assembly asked the county general hospital to carry out mass testing of MCAs and staff but the hospital management said it did not have testing kits.
County health services executive Dr Collins Matemba said that plans are underway to relocate virus patients at the general hospital to Likuyani Subcounty Hospital and leave the facility for VIP admissions.