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Kenyan Physicians Cope With ICU Shortages During Coronavirus Pandemic

April Zhu

   NAIROBI - Countries struggling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are
   scrambling to buy intensive care equipment, especially ventilators,
   which are needed in the most critical cases. In Africa, the coronavirus
   is spreading much faster than ICU equipment can be brought in and
   nurses trained. As a result, physicians in Kenya are drawing on the
   experience of colleagues overseas to prepare.'¯

   Long before the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was discovered,
   Dr. Wangari Waweru-Siika had for years been working on answering the
   difficult life-and-death questions that the world is now asking in the
   midst of the pandemic: which patient gets an ICU bed with a ventilator
   and other life-support equipment, and which doesn't?

   Waweru-Siika is a practicing anesthesiologist and professor at
   Nairobi's Aga Khan University Hospital. She has been at the forefront
   of developing ethical frameworks for intensive care in Kenya.

   "You need to have a clear triage system that is different from your
   normal triage system when it comes to COVID," she said. "There are
   certain patients who -- in some institutions around the world -- if
   they get COVID, are not being admitted to intensive care because their
   chances of survival are minimal."

   Kenya has around 180 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Six people
   here have died, according to the latest figures from the United States'
   Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global pandemic.

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