The government has reduced the cost of testing Covid-19 for domestic travelers from $100 to $50 for RT- PCR test.
It has also reduced the cost of the Antigen Rapid Test from $25 to $10 for all travelers entering the country and removed the test at all borders posts except at airports.
In a statement signed by Minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Dorothy Gwajima on August 11, the new charges will take effect from August 16, 2021.
Earlier this year Health ministry issued a statement clarifying the decision behind the hike of Covid-19 tests by almost 400 per cent where the cost of testing for the disease to rose from Sh40, 000 to Sh230, 000.
Dr Gwajima stated in a Covid-19 testing guideline for people traveling abroad that the hike of new Covid-19 variant across the world and technological changes in testing had forced the cost to rise
On March 4, during her official visit in Kenya President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Uhuru Kenyatta directed ministers responsible for health from Kenya and Tanzania to meet and to discuss and establish simplified systems for facilitating testing and timely issuance of Covid-19 results, to ease the movement of people, goods and services across the common border.
However on August 06, Tanzania’s health minister Dr Dorothy Gwajima and Kenya’s Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe agreed that cross border issues such as transport, Covid-19 test and validation systems for those leaving and entering the country that stirred up emotions in the past between the two countries will be buried.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN.