Kenyan Governor, Mike Sonko, is being blasted online for suggesting that ‘small bottles of Hennessy’ be added to food packs being distributed to the city’s poor families amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The governor presented this idea during a media briefing.
“’We will be giving some small bottles of Hennessy in the food package which we give to our people,’ Sonko decreed “From the research which has been conducted by World Health Organization (WHO) and various health organizations, it has been revealed that alcohol plays a very major role in killing the coronavirus or any sort of virus,” he said in a clip.
The video of this statement trended online with people bashing him for his careless comment.
Some Kenyans commented asking if he was indeed serious or it was a joke.
Dr. Githinji Gitahi, the global CEO of Amref Health Africa also tweeted a swift response to the briefing.
“Please completely ignore clowning of a major global pandemic taking lives & putting extreme pressure on households,” he wrote. “Dump this the way you would dump your used #COVID19 #mask — never to be recovered! @MOH_Kenya needs to condemn this as this is not an ordinary citizen!”
The world health organisation has gone on record saying that drinking alcohol does not protect against the coronavirus- and that frequent or excessive alcohol use can even increase the risk of health problems.
When it comes to hand hygiene, the CDC recommends alcohol-based sanitizers with greater than 60 percent ethanol or 70 percent isopropanol in healthcare settings.
But “The cognac Gov. Mike Sonko has referenced only has 40% vol. alcohol,” said a reporter of the BBC, Wanjiru Muriuki. She also added that even if someone were to use the drink as hand sanitiser it would not be effective against the coronavirus.
Sonko, who has been relieved of his duties pending a £2.7 million corruption trial, has been slammed by medical experts who said drinking alcohol is, in fact, detrimental to the immune system.
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