Fred Matiangi, Kenya’s Ministry of Interior Super Cabinet Secretary is critically ill and fighting for his life. He has been admitted to the Aga Khan Hospital Intesive Care Unit (ICU). Fred Matiangi is arguable the most high performing cabinet minister in Uhuru Kenyatta‘s Jubilee government. It is expected that the government will use all the resources available to institute a concerted effort to save one of their best civil servants. Not only is Dr. Fred Matiangi valuable to Mr. Kenyatta’s government right now, he is also a beacon in his native Kisii County as Uhuru Kenyatta will use him to milk as many votes as possible from the Abagusii community. Dr. Fred Matiangi will be particularly important for Uhuru Kenyatta’s team in the upcoming general elections in 2022.
It was reported later today that Fred Matiangi was rushed to Aga Khan Hospital’s ICU after his condition deteriorated. Mr. Matiangi has been self-isolating at his home for the past couple of weeks after being notified that he had tested positive for the deadly novel coronavirus. The news regarding Fred Matiangi’s health woes has been trending on social media early today prompting the public to try to ascertain the authenticity of the news.
Fred Matiangi: Who is he?
Dr. Fred Matiangi is the current Super Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Interior in the current Jubilee government. Mr. Matiangi is also tasked with the coordination of National Security in Kenya, a position he took after the untimely demise of Joseph Nkaissery in 2017. Dr. Matiangi was the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Science and Technology between 2013-2018 before being moved to his current role by Mr. Kenyatta after a government reshuffle.
Dr, Matiangi was born in Borabu Constituency in Nyamira County. He grew up there and then left to attend University studies at the Kenyatta University (KU). After graduating from KU with a bachelor of Arts Degree, he later went back to the University of Nairobi where he graduated with his masters degree and then later did his doctorate degree from the same institution.
Contracting Covid-19
It is unclear when exactly did Dr. Fred Matiangi contract the deadly coronavirus. What is known is that Mr. Matiangi has been conspicuously missing lately in Uhuru Kenyatta’s key projects across the country. While previously Mr. Matiangi could be seen flanking the head of state or other senior government officials, he has not been seen for the past several weeks especially during the Covid-19 press conferences.
Coronavirus has infected more than 15,000 people in Kenya of which 250 have lost their lives. More than 5,000 covid-19 patients have made a full recovery and have been discharged from hospitals across the country.
The government of Kenya opened up the country on July 8, 2020 after a near 4-month lockdown and a dusk to dawn mandatory curfew. These measures were meant to curb the spread of the deadly virus although they have been widely criticized as ineffective in controlling the spread of the virus. The criticism seems fairly warranted in the fact that Kenya with more than 15,000 covid-19 infections went into a 4 month lock-down while Tanzania which refused to lock down its economy only has 509 covid-19 cases! Kenya’s caseload is more than 30 times more than Tanzania’s despite the former’s aggressive precautionary measures that were mistakenly construed as being effective at preventing the spread. If lockdowns and curfews were indeed working, then the reverse could have been true when you compare the rate of infections in the two East African countries.
Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 15 million people, of which at least 700,000 of them have died while more than 10 million covid-19 patients have made a full recovery world-wide.
The United States of America is by far the most affected with more than 4 million coronavirus case so far confirmed with at least 150,000 deaths. Brazil is closely in second place for having more than 2 million covid-19 infections with at least 85,000 deaths so far. It is worth noting that the president of Brazil, Mr. Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for covid-19 three times so far in the last four weeks.
The Brazilian president, just like his counterpart in the United States (Mr. Donald Trump) has previously denied the existence of covid-19 not only in his own country but the world at large. He had termed it as a conspiracy and just a common cold that has been exaggerated in order to keep people indoors. Mr. Bolsonaro has opposed an attempt to put Brazil under a strict lock-down as he fears that will cripple the economy of Brazil.
The United States reports more than 70,000 new cases every day while Brazil follows closely nearby at 65,000 daily new infections. Each of these two country have had more than 1,200 covid-19 deaths daily for the past three months.
In Africa, South Africa is by far the most affected country in the entire continent. South Africa has more than 400,000 confirmed coronavirus cases of which at least 6,000 covid-19 patients have died. However, it is worth noting that more than 229,000 coronavirus patients have made a full recovery in South Africa and have been discharged from hospital as of time of writing this article. In the past 24 hours, South Africa reported more than 600 covid-19 related deaths in the country. This rate of deaths in South Africa is more than all the other countries combined in the continent of Africa.
Like Kenya and many other western nations, South Africa instituted a mandatory lock-down and a curfew back in April in an attempt to stem the spread of the deadly virus. But unfortunately, this did not stop the spread as new infections sky-rocketed upon re-opening of the South African economy about four weeks ago. Whereas South Africa has the highest confirmed covid-19 cases, it is important to note that the country has conducted significantly more covid-19 tests than any other country in the continent. South Africa has tested at least 3 million people while Morocco (in second place) has tested 1 million people as of today.
The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria has only tested 250,000 people so far. It is expected that Nigeria might actually surpass South Africa in the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 as well as the casualties from the deadly virus, once Nigeria ramps up its testing efforts.
