At least 1,000 people have been killed in western Kenya in the past three months due to an outbreak of malaria, president Daniel Arap Moi said. Moi visited the worst hit Kisii district, 155 miles west of the capital Nairobi to condole with the relatives of the dead. He also visited Kisii Hospital which is filled with a large numbers of malaria-afflicted people. The situation in the hospital is so bad that two patients had to occupy a single bed. Some patients are even worse off as they had to lie on the floors due to the lack of vacant beds.
"I have been saddened by the high rate at which the malaria epidemic has killed people in this area," Moi said after the visit. "My government has deployed medical personnel from the Kenyan army barracks to reinforce the medical personnel at Kissi to combat this epidemic." More than 340 people were killed last year because of a malaria outbreak. This year some 90,000 people have been hospitalised so far because of the disease.
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