Former Mukumu Girls principal Fridah Ndolo and other administrators could be off the hook in the deaths of three students and a teacher over alleged food contamination.

Education CS Ezekiel Machogu said the ongoing investigations are yet to nail any of the administrators to warrant their prosecution.

The revelation is a big relief to the former principal Fridah Ndolo who has been on the spot over the death of three students and a teacher.

The CS spoke when he appeared before the Senate plenary to answer questions from the members.

Machogu was responding to a question by Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale on whether the government was considering pressing charges on the former principal and the county director of education for alleged negligence.

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“Can the minister inform us whether he’s going to take any action against the director and the former principal for negligence that led to the death of our children?” Khalwale posed.

Yesterday, Machogu said the government will compensate the families of the deceased with Sh400,000 each.

“The families of the deceased students will receive Sh400,000 per student from Group Life Insurance Cover as compensation,” he said.

“The ministry through the regional and county offices and the school’s management, has provided guidance and support to the bereaved families in pursuing these claims for payment.”

The ministry, Machogu disclosed, also catered to the treatment cost of 109 students who were admitted at various health facilities.

They were admitted to Kakamega County Referral Hospital, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Aga Khan, KNH, Mediheal, Oasis and Lifecare Hospital.

Machogu spelt out the ministry’s strategy to boost safety and security in all public schools.

He said the ministry enhanced surveillance and enforcement of the guidelines to guarantee safety of the students.

“Yes, you can have a very good manual but the issue of enforcement… and that is why I have said I am giving my officers all the necessary support,” the CS said.

He said the government has procured vehicles for directors of education across the country to enhance their mobility to enforce the set guidelines.

“With effect from this year we’re giving each one of them a vehicle so that they can effectively inspect schools around them,” Machogu said.

The ministry developed the safety standards manual for schools to provide guidelines on ensuring safety and health conditions in the school environment.

The manual requires the schools, to among other things, establish a safety subcommittee.

The manual also provides guidance on promotion of environmental sanitation and hygiene practices, provision of safe water and sanitation and protection of children with special needs.

“Through our quality assurance teams in the ground, we continue to monitor compliance with requirement of the manual,” he said.

A meeting to discuss the reopening of Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls High School turned chaotic forcing police to disperse the gathering with teargas.

The meeting had resolved that the school will reopen on May 2.

Trouble started after parents insisted that cereals and other foodstuffs in the school stores be destroyed in their presence before the school reopened.

Their demand was turned down by the Western Regional Commissioner Irungu Macharia who chaired the meeting.

“We must follow the procedure which cannot allow the food to be destroyed today,” he said.

It was at that juncture that the parents booed the commissioner.

He then left in a huff.

Parents attempted to break into the store and destroy the food themselves forcing the police to disperse them by lobbying teargas canisters at the rowdy parents.

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No injuries were reported during the fracas.

The meeting was attended by Kakamega senator Boni Khalwale, Kakamega woman MP Elsie Muhanda and Shinyalu MP Fred Ikana.

Senior TSC officials and the regional director of education Jerald Obiero were also present.

Khalwale supported the parents saying the food, worth Sh6.4m, should be burnt to ensure it does not find its way to students’ plates when the school reopens.

He said that the food was contaminated and should not continue being stored in the school stores when students are in school.

Muhanda said that parents were major stakeholders in the school and should be listened to.

The school was closed following the death of three students and a boarding mistress following an outbreak of diarrhoea.

The government confirmed that the deaths at the school were caused by typhoid-causing bacterial salmonella.

Students of Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls High School in Kakamega County have recounted how their complaints over poor hygiene at the institution were ignored by the administration leading to an outbreak of the mysterious illness that claimed four lives.

The students told mourners when they bade farewell to their colleague, Diana Mambili, on Saturday afternoon that they raised issues surrounding the state of water, store and the kitchen but the administration never bothered to listen to them.

“The dining hall prefects raised this matter with the teachers but they were told that we were not in the school for comfort and that we should leave if we were not satisfied with the situation. We chose to keep quiet,” they narrated.

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The learners, who asked not to be named, said stomach upsets had become frequent occurrences at the school and that the administration only handed painkillers to those affected.

They said the students who complained of stomach pains were first subjected to pregnancy tests.

“Whenever a student falls sick, she is tested for pregnancy and then given painkillers. She can only be taken to hospital when in very bad shape and without the knowledge of their parents or guardians,” they added.

They said the illness would have been avoided if the administration had acted upon complains by the learners.

“Deaths of Diana and our teacher would have been averted if the affected students were taken to hospital early enough. But the school waited until the situation was worse before taking action,” said one.

The students moved the mourners to tears at their colleague’s funeral in lleho, Shinyalu Constituency, attended by area MP Fred lkana.

The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) has protested at the transfer of the Mukumu girl’s former principal, Ms Fridah Ndolo, and faulted the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for the move over “a mistake that was beyond her”.

Secretary General Akelo Misori said the incident that left over 600 other students and workers hospitalised was as a result of negligence by the authorities.

“Punishing the principal only undermines efforts to find lasting solutions to the problem over which she had no control,” said Mr Misori.

He added; “Her removal fits in a pattern where our hard-working principals are used as sacrificial lambs to mitigate public anger at any malfunction in the school system regardless of the enormity of the situation.”

Mr Misori said the union dispatched a team of health experts to the school to unearth the cause of the deaths and it found that there was water contamination due to the close proximity of the water and sewer systems.

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He said this was an issue that reflected the failure by the country’s public health authorities.

The official report from the Ministry of Health indicated that the incident was caused by Enterotoxigenic E Coli and Salmonella Typhi, an indication that the water was contaminated.

“Our team observed that the water used at the school is stored in an underground tank, close to where a sewer line runs. The possibility of sewer contaminating water in the tank due to seepage is very high,” said Mr Misori.

The union said the school had 2,028 students against its capacity of about 400, overstretching the limited resources.

Mr Misori attributed this overload to the government’s policy of 100 per cent transition from primary school to secondary school

“The school is clearly overpopulated and the learning resources and other facilities are strained. Uncontrolled sharing of resources due to the scarcity plays a critical role in disease transmission in the event of an outbreak,” said Mr Misori.

Mr Misori called out the Directorate of Public Health for negligence in public health surveillance, noting that a similar outbreak had been reported at Buture Boys High in Kakamega and Khasoko Boys High School in Bungoma.

“There clearly is a systemic lapse in public health surveillance as opposed to failure by the school administration in adhering to public health guidelines. Madam Ndolo had no power whatsoever over sewer systems developed by the county government,” said Mr Misori.

Kuppet is now threatening to sue the Ministry of Education over the “knee-jerk” removal of the principal, which was announced by Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu.

Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls’ High School teacher, Juliana Mujema has passed away.

According to the family, said she succumbed to multiple organ failures.

Mujema’s death brings the count to four after three students passed away in a similar case of suspected food poisoning.

Her family says she exhibited symptoms similar to those of three students.

She was admitted to Oasis medical centre in Kakamega before her condition worsened.

She was then referred to an ICU at Lifecare Speciality Hospital in Eldoret town, where she passed on.

This comes after a diarrhoea outbreak was reported in the school.

The outbreak saw over 124 students hospitalised at the Kakamega County General Hospital in a suspected case of food and water poisoning.

On April 3, the school was shut down by public health officers in Kakamega after more than 500 were infected by the bacteria.

Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale on Thursday warned parents against taking their children back to school.

“I am disheartened to report that the situation on the ground has not changed, and I wish to advise parents of this great institution not to take their children back to school until the requisite changes are made,” he said.

Khalwale was dejected that her death, along with those of three students from the school, could have been prevented.

“I am completely crestfallen with these preventable deaths taking place at Mukumu Girls due to consumption of unhygienic food and water,” he said.

“Ms Juliana Mujemu, the teacher in charge of boarding is the latest to succumb. RIP our gallant teacher.”

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Khalwale, who had visited the school to assess the situation, said the food storage area was still full of rotten foodstuff.

The school is scheduled for reopening early next month.

The senator faulted the school for not taking precautionary steps to get cleaner water or purify the water it uses from a local river.

“The Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission accordingly stand accused of failing to take any single action against the School Principal, BOM, and other officers who, through sheer negligence, deliberate greed or incompetence, are responsible for the current life-threatening mess at Mukumu Girls,” he added.

Parents have asked the government to conduct inspections in public boarding schools to assess the learning environment and enforce health standards in the learning institutions.

This comes following the deaths of two students at Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls High School.

The Ministry of Education should form a special task force that will move around inspecting the schools, said National Parents’ Association (NPA) chairman Silas Obuhatsa, adding that school managers had failed to follow the health and sanitation guidelines issued by the government.

“Teachers should ensure sanitation standards are upheld. Places where food is prepared and the dining halls should be clean. Water should be treated and water storage tanks cleaned regularly,” said Mr Obuhatsa.

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The Ministry of Health has initiated plans to form a multi-agency team that to assess the health and education standards in schools across the country.

Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha said the task force will comprise officials from the ministries of Health, Education, Environment, Water and Internal Security.

The CS, who visited Sacred Heart Mukumu Girls and Butere Boys high schools in Kakamega County on April 5, said health officials had taken samples of food and water for testing in government laboratories to find out the cause of infection at the school in Mukumu.

This came as preliminary tests from Kakamega County General Hospital where majority of the girls were taken for treatment indicated that the students suffered bacterial infection from contaminated food and water.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang urged school principals to curb overcrowding in dormitories, dining halls and classrooms and to adhere to learner safety standards.

“I appeal to all heads of learning institutions, school management committees and teachers to strictly adhere to the safety standards for the good of our children,” said Dr Kipsang at Butere Boys High School.

He urged parents and guardians to take a keen interest in the safety of their children.

“The safety of our children is central to the provision of quality education and,  apart from personal threats, insecurity for the children can emanate from inappropriate school facilities and infrastructure,” he said.

Sacred heart Mukumu girls high school principal, Frida Ndolo has had a bitter exchange with the Basic Education Principal Secretary, Belio Kipsang.

On Wednesday, April 5, Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Susan Nakhumicha and Basic Education Principal Secretary visited Mukumu Girls’ High School in Kakamega County to establish what might have caused contamination in food and water that the learners took.

The food contamination left two students dead and tens hospitalised.

“Why are you on the phone?” PS Kipsang told Ndolo, adding: “Don’t you realise we are here on an important fact-finding mission, to establish what caused the deaths of our daughters?”

In response, Ndolo said: “I am calling the person who should be opening the food store.”

In a quick rejoinder, Kipsang said: “All along, you knew we would be visiting your school. So, why did you not plan early enough?”

Appearing nervous, Ndolo disconnected the call as the respective ministries’ officials looked at her. She, thereafter, remained silent throughout the session led by CS Nakhumicha and PS Kipsang.

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The principal had earlier attracted backlash from Kenyans, including Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale, after her April 3 notice on the closure of the school went viral.

Addressing parents in the letter, she said: “This is to notify you that following consultation with the Ministry of Education directors and TSC directors, it has been decided that the students break off to heal of the toxic environment already created by the media.”

Chrispinus Juma, a Facebook user, took issue with the blame directed at the media by Ndolo.

“Ndolo claims the media has created a toxic environment for learners, yet postmortem conducted on the two deceased girls indicated they died of gastritis or stomach inflammation. Was it not toxic food or water that killed the girls?” he posed.

Western Region Director of Education Jared Obiero said an investigation into management of the school was urgently needed, hence the decision to close it indefinitely.

“Last year (2022), a student of Mukumu Girls’ High School died. Recently, the school lost two more students in a case of suspected food poisoning. We cannot allow this to continue. The school will remain closed until the safety of our children is guaranteed,” he said.

In her address to journalists after a tour of the school on Wednesday, Health CS Nakhumicha said she was disappointed to see how dirty the school’s kitchen was.

“You (Ndolo) must ensure the kitchen is cleaned,” the minister told the school’s principal, adding that even the dining tables were unsightly.

As this happens, Ndolo is only three months away from retiring, as she will attain the retirement age of 60.

Meanwhile, food and water samples from Mukumu Girls’ High School were collected for analysis at KEMRI laboratories. The results are yet to be out.

The Ministry of Health has linked the outbreaks in Mukumu Girls and Butere Boys High Schools to a suspected gastroenteritis outbreak.

The outbreak in Mukumu girls has left two students dead.

Gastroenteritis, also known as stomach flu, is a very common condition that causes diarrhoea and vomiting and is usually caused by consuming contaminated food or water.

According to the ministry, field investigations at Mukumu Girls point to possible water contamination at the water reservoir.

It is an intestinal infection that includes signs and symptoms such as watery diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea or vomiting, and sometimes fever.

Wafula said water and food samples have been collected from Mukumu Girls for further testing at the government chemist and National Public Health Laboratories.

She said a total of 108 cases of gastroenteritis have so far been reported at Mukumu Girls with two deaths reported.

Sixty-eight were managed as outpatients with only 40 students being admitted; 26 of whom are still admitted. Nine of them are at the Kakamega County Referral Hospital and 17 at Mukumu Mission Hospital.

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“One student who was in a critical state has markedly improved and has been moved from the Intensive Care Unit through the High Dependency Unit to the general ward,” the CS said in a statement.

“It is noteworthy to state that patient samples tested negative for Vibrio cholerae and Marburg virus,” she added.

In Butere Boys High School, on the other hand, 97 students reported having diarrhoea, abdominal pain and vomiting following breakfast.

The CS noted that 87 of them were managed as outpatients at Butere Level 4 Hospital, with 10 admitted at St James Hospital and all have recovered and discharged.

All patient samples collected tested negative for cholera.

“In the meantime, outbreak investigations are ongoing with environmental and food samples collected for further testing at the Government Chemist and National Public Health Laboratories,” she said.

The CS on Wednesday toured the school accompanied by the Education PS Belio Kipsang, Kakamega County Governor Fernandes Barasa and Regional Commissioner Samson Irungu Macharia to assess the situation.

Health experts warn that the most common way to develop gastroenteritis is through contact with an infected person or by consuming contaminated food or water.

Healthy people who get infected are likely to recover without complications but it can be deadly among infants, older adults and people with compromised immune systems.

Kipsang reiterated that the Ministry of Education will work closely with the Ministry of Health and the two schools to ensure they are offered the necessary help they need.

At least 124 students of the Sacred Hearts Mukumu Girls in Kakamega have been admitted to the Kakamega County General Hospital.

Although it was not immediately established what the students suffered from, initial tests by public health officials ruled out Cholera.

The officials said that food poisoning could be the likely cause of the diarrhoea.

The county health chief officer David Alila said that more students were being received at the hospital.

“We are yet to know what the real cause of the diarrhoea is. We are still conducting tests,” he said.

He said that the hospital will issue a comprehensive report after completing the tests.

Efforts to obtain a comment from school principal Fridah Amwayi were futile as she did not answer calls.