By Lawrence Gikaru
The current unfolding Covid 19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to those responsible for the welfare of Kenyans particularly public health officials, employers, the national and county ministries responsible for health. In a situation where so much is not known but during which a lot of new information about the threat is becoming increasingly available, the need for raising the right perception of risk has never been greater. According the World Health Organization (WHO), while it took three months for cases to rise to 100,000 it only took 12 days for the next 100,000 to be confirmed. The total confirmed cases through testing now stands at 250,000.
The Ministry of Health under the leadership of Mutahi Kagwe has led from the front by holding regular briefings to share with the media and the public about what the government is doing towards rolling back the pandemic. Top of this policy agenda seems like preventing the disease from taking hold in the population. Emphasis has rightly been put on preventive measures such as washing hands with soap, use of alcohol-based sanitisers and keeping social distance.
All this is happening as the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called upon African countries to prepare for the worst. Though in less than a week the number of reported cases in Africa has increased by six times, the WHO says the pandemic is still in its early stages in Africa. According to the WHO regional director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti , the real numbers of those who might have the virus but are not showing any symptoms may still be low because of limited testing capacity.
Given that these events are largely outside our understanding of what is normal, they create high levels of uncertainty. As things progress and we now move to the next phase of containment with more people remaining largely confined to their homes, this presents an opportunity for health and other authorities to leverage one of the most powerful units of change—the household. It is only when heads of households adopt the new behaviours being recommended that these new measures will be sustainable as a social norm. Importantly, the message must now focus on building the will to act and therefore contribute towards flattening the curve of new infections to manageable levels with the household as the unit of change.
The onus for public officials responsible for rallying the public behind the measures that will flatten the curve so to speak is to raise risk perception among the 12 milion household heads both about the risk that this diseases poses to their health and economic wellbeing. As new information emerges, it must be communicated in ways that guide them to take appropriate preventive measures with the consequences this failure may bring to their household. And it should be easy to build this connection with a call to action because the devastating effects of the disease will be at the household level.
If this is done well it helps to manage people’s expectations and fear, making it more likely that they will follow instructions from the authorities by playing their role from a point of self-interest. The challenge for officials responsible for mobilizing the public behind fighting the onset of this pandemic in Kenya is the need to balance between the threat of causing fear while at the same raising the perception of risk that appeals to individuals need for self-preservation.
One such issue has been that of random testing for the general population. The other is that of the possibility that some areas will be subjected to either partial or total lockdown to break the cycle of infections. For these measures to be adopted, different agencies in government, NGOs, the private sector, county governments must work in a focused manner towards influencing the family unit to take the frontline in adopting the new recommended preventive practices. Seeing the family as the unit of change will be key in reinforcing and sustaining the preventive behaviours that will help us stem the pandemic from taking hold. Information coming from the United States show for example that young people are the main agent of spreading the virus as they move between their homes and different social places.
If we manage to do this, then the decision makers who are official agencies, will be aligned with the decision takers, who are the household heads. In addition, the authorities must ensure that service systems needed to support the new practices are in place including where people who experience symptoms should go to get tested.
The writer is the Managing Director of Apex Porter Novelli, a Nairobi-based strategic communication agency with expertise in public health communication.
