Public figures can end Covid stigma
Journalist Jeff Koinange was the first Kenyan public figure to reveal that he had contracted the novel Coronavirus disease.
He was soon followed by Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Kamau Macharia and humanitarian and consumer activist Jerotich Seei.
We commend the trio for their willingness to share their health conditions. Indeed, theirs is a good example that we hope shall be emulated by all public figures.
We broach this subject because Covid-19 has been made to look like a chimera and those who get infected are subjected to stigmatisation. Coronavirus victims are treated like pariahs and humiliated to very debasing levels.
Due to the stigmatisation, the ailing are afraid of publicly disclosing their status such that most of them merely suffer in silence, more so those in positions of power and influence.
That is the opposite case in other countries where public figures have come out to openly reveal their situations to the public.
Leaders like UK premier Boris Johnson, President Jair Bosinaro of Brazil, as well as sporting icons like Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta, footballers Callum Hudson-Odoi of Chelsea, Marouane Fellaini and tennis ace Novak Djokovic publicly declared their status upon infection.
It is that kind of openness that we are vouching for. This is important because announcing one’s condition helps to convince the entire public on the seriousness of the pandemic by buttressing the fact that anyone can get it and that it can also be avoided by strictly adhering to the guidelines stipulated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) through the country’s Ministry of Health.
To the purveyors of news, it is no secret that a number of prominent Kenyans - among them Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, Members of Parliament, business magnates and a host of other persons of repute, including those on the forefront of preaching the WHO guidelines have contracted the disease but are hiding their status, as if to classify it as a disease for a certain group of citizens. Yet it is not.
These public figure are the ones who are contributing to the stigmatisation. We urge them to bravely come to the open and share their conditions. It would help a great deal.
