African press review 17 July 2015

Malpractice could be behind a mystery illness crippling children at a remote western Kenyan village. In South Africa, a council is under fire for 2.3 million rand (170,000 euros) in unpaid e-toll bills. And a fairy tale funeral for a Kenyan man who died on the eve of his wedding.

We start in Kenya where there is increased press interest in the mystery illness that has paralysed dozens of children in the western Kenyan county of Busia.

Daily Nation says angry parents ferried six more children with paralysed or weak legs to hospital as they demanded the arrest and prosecution of health workers said to have improperly injected them.

According to the newspaper, there are strong indications that the tally could be much higher than the 30 cases confirmed so far by the Ministry of Health as receiving treatment at the Akichelesit Dispensary in Teso North.

Kenya’s director of medical services, Dr Nicholas Muraguri, is quoted as saying that the cases in Busia are due to malpractice or professional negligence, hinting that the children may have been injected in the sciatic nerve, extending from the lower end of the spinal cord down the back of the thigh, and dividing above the knee joint.

Standard Digital reports that a nurse at the Akichelesit Dispensary in Teso North sub-county and two other hospital workers have been suspended pending a full investigation into the injection scandal. The drugs used to inject the children include Quinine, Diclofenac and Plasim and were confirmed not to have expired, according to the Standard newspaper.

In South Africa, City Press is up in arms against the Gauteng government following revelations that several municipalities in the province haven’t paid e-toll bills to the tune of 2.3 million rand (170,000 euros). The newspaper wonders how the same government which in May introduced a user-pay system and stopped issuing licence disks for cars with unsettled e-toll bills can justify the road worthiness of its vehicles.

That sends a very dangerous message to society, says the Johannesburg-based publication. It tells the country’s citizens, it warns, that the government shouldn’t be respected, that laws are there to be broken, and that bills shouldn’t be paid.

And in Kenya, we have a moving story about a wedding-like send-off accorded a man who died on the eve of his wedding. Standard Digital reports that 28-year-old John Mwangi Macharia was laid to rest in a casket decked out in the red shirt and black pair of trousers he was to wear during the wedding.

It reports that during the ceremony, Mwangi’s would-have-been bride Irene Jepkemboi was called upon to cut the cake by the priest who had been due to preside over his wedding, finished delivering the sermon. The tragic part of the story is that the 28-year-old John Mwangi Macharia died last Friday in a car crash, on his way to pick up his in-laws for the wedding.