Kenya's health minister Mr. Mutahi Kagwe announced recently that it is not sustainable for insurance companies to cover COVID-19. Currently, some providers do cover costs at designated government facilities. But as CGTN's Enock Sikolia reports, many patients are left with huge hospital bills.

Benson Musungu was insured when he first entered the emergency room. Doctors at Aga Khan Hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi thought that he had pneumonia. 

After 3 days of hospitalisation, he received a COVID- 19 diagnosis and his situation changed.

Benson Musungu, COVID-19 Survivor: "They told me because it was an epidemic, epidemics are never covered across the world. And you see I went there not knowing I am going to use my money because I knew I had a cover. But the cover has been withdrawn, now I am on my own.” 

15 days in the Intensive Care Unit had left him with a hefty bill – all to be paid out of pocket.

By the time he was recovering, the total was over 22,000 US dollars. The cost of protecting doctors, nurses, nutritionists and cleaners was passed onto him.

Musungu says he had to pay 270 US dollars per day just for PPEs. "And that has nothing to do with medication, it's about protecting a person who is coming to see a COVID-19 patient. And that's only the PPEs. Now we go to oxygen. Oxygen at Aga Khan is 300 Kenyan Shillings, that is 3 dollars. 3 dollars by 24 hours, then 15 days I was in the ICU. So you can tell me how much that's.”

Dr Ahmed Ouma, the deputy director at the Africa CDC, explains that supportive care is where the accumulation of bills begins.

"Supportive treatment will require special equipment. It requires specialists, it requires different combinations of medicines and all these combinations take time. So you will find someone in hospital for at least 10 days and most of them are above two weeks and everyday some procedure is being done. That's what makes it expensive.”

"With the management of COVID-19 becoming a very expensive affair for a majority of the African population, Africa CDC says African governments can do a lot to help.”

"Governments can be able to subsidise the cost by one, procuring what is required because then they procure it at pulled procurement rate which is less than it is out in the private sector after all they don't make a profit so what is passed on to the patient becomes less," Dr. Ouma says.

He concludes that, knowledge and personal responsibility remain the best weapon against the highly contagious virus.