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{
    "id": 980831,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/980831/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 84,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I have had an occasion previously to handle certain emergencies in this country. You will remember when we had the brucellosis and many other emergencies resulting in deaths. The Corona Virus is a very virulent and contagious virus. Depending on the severity of the virus, people succumb to death very easily without any difficulty whatsoever. That is why you have seen a lot of people being reported as having succumbed to this Corona Virus. The death rate is likely to rise because the virus mutates, and you may get a severe form which may not respond to simple therapy. In 2003, we had a similar situation called the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which occurred again in China. Fortunately, that type of acute virus was contained within a very short period of time, of between two to three weeks, and we were able to contain it without any difficulty. The peculiarity of this Corona Virus, as I see it, is that it has happened in one central place, Wuhan. One wonders, with the kind population in China of almost 1.4 billion people, why it only happens in one particular area. I am persuaded that this could be one of those laboratory accidents, just like I was persuaded that the HIV/AIDS and the prevalence rates was also one of those accidents that may have occurred; and that automatically puts it to the realm of biological warfare. Therefore, that is the science of it, as far as the science is concerned. The question that arises in this situation is, what are we doing, as Kenyans, to respond to this emergency? One of the things that we must appreciate and understand is that it is not a self-limiting disease; it is a transmissible disease. When you finally find out that just breathing out once you have been contaminated with the virus, you are then able to infect your neighbor or whatever group you are in with. If you have coughing episodes without putting that mask on, you are able to infect somebody. If you have severe chest infection, severe chest embarrassment or what we call respiratory embarrassment or breathing difficulties, then that is one way that when you cough, you transmit that disease. What Kenya should do today – and I have been waiting to see that being done – is that I should have seen the Ministry of Health taking a lead position in preparing Kenyans to deal with emergencies. This is because when it does land in Kenya, unfortunately for the Senate, we will lose many lives if we are not very careful."
}