From the Daily Telegraph:-
Kenyans are reacting with anger to a video showing students being sprayed with disinfectant that they say could be harmful.
The issue highlights the dilemma facing schools in Kenya – and around the world – as they try to resume education in a way that does not risk the continued transmission of Covid-19.
As schools reopened Monday in Kenya, female students wearing face masks in one school appeared to be showered with disinfectant pumped from a pesticide sprayer, to the ire of parents online.
"How did adults sit down and decided that spraying children like this contains #Covid19? What happened to running water and soap?,”
Reacting to the outrage at the daily Covid-19 briefing on Tuesday, Dr Rashid Aman, the administrative secretary at the Kenyan health ministry warned schools against spraying methods. “Those chemicals should not be used on humans…only on surfaces,” he said.
Back in February in the early days of the coronavirus, students at a Lebanese school were sprayed in a similar manner to the annoyance of many.
In an update to its Covid-19 guidelines in May, the World Health Organization warned that spraying disinfectants which contain toxins on people could be “physically and psychologically harmful”.
Side effects could range from eye and skin irritation to gastrointestinal effects, according to the update. The Africa CDC also issued a report against the use of disinfection cubicles, an early Covid-19 innovation that was popular in African countries but that the agency said could expose people to harmful chemicals.
Kenyan schools opened back up this week after the government rescinded on July pronouncements that the school year would be scrapped altogether.
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