Fear as Mysterious Disease with Coronavirus-Like Signs Kills 17 Children in Kenya

Residents of Kilifi County are living in fear after a strange disease with symptoms linked to coronavirus killed nearly 20 children in the past three weeks.

The mysterious illness that has also left the county’s health officials puzzled allegedly claimed the lives of 17 children between March 2nd and March 22nd, according to a report by The Standard on Sunday.

The kids died after exhibiting symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, fever, general body weakness, and dry mild cough, the publication adds.

Speaking to The Standard, Zacharia Opollo said he lost his 1.5-year-old daughter Miriam Ndede less than 24 hours after she fell ill. Opollo said his daughter first experienced difficulty in breathing on March 3rd, and they took her to a private facility in Kilifi where she was treated and discharged.

But her condition got worse hours later forcing them to rush her to Malindi sub-County Hospital where she was immediately admitted to the High Dependency Unit (HDU).

Sadly, the young girl passed away at the facility at 4 am and doctors could not establish the root cause of her death. 16 other parents have allegedly lost their kids to the strange illness that is yet to be identified.

“Over the last two weeks, we have seen children with similar presentations of sickness,” one of the health workers in Kilifi told The Standard adding that the children died in a matter of hours after being taken to the hospital.

“We are puzzled, we don’t know whether there is something at the hospitals that are affecting these children and interfering with their treatment process.”

Alfred Ouma said his eight-month-old daughter died after showing similar symptoms.

“She died in less than 24 hours and the diagnosis they gave was pneumonia,” he narrated.

Kilifi has been classified as one of the high-risk areas in regards to the coronavirus pandemic, having recorded six of the 38 cases of Covid-19 in the country. Only Nairobi (28) has more infections than Kilifi.