Nyambega Gisesa

8 September 2010

Nairobi — In different small dingy prison cells, two brothers remain isolated from the rest of the world. The two have been imprisoned for eight months.

Mr Kipng'etich Kirui, 28, and Mr Daniel Ng'etich, 38, are neither prisoners of crime nor prisoners of war; neither are they volunteer prisoners out to get a feel of the Kenyan prison system in Nandi Central District.

The former road and farm casual workers, respectively, sinned against the Kenya Public Health Act in Kapsabet town.

They have already been charged and sentenced by a Nandi magistrate for refusing to take tuberculosis (TB) drugs as directed by the doctor.

In the last 20 years, TB infections in the country have grown four times. Now Kenya ranks 13th in the world and fifth in Africa in the category of countries with a high burden of TB infections.

When sentencing the two, the magistrate condemned them to complete isolation - no visitors and no inter-mingling with other prisoners. They are not even allowed to talk to each other. A prison warden will be allowed in to deliver food and pills.

Specifically, she said, they did not heed doctors' instructions to take medicine as required, and as a result, exposed the public to the airborne disease. Therefore, they deserved to be isolated and think about their actions.

They were given a chance to walk home if they showed a change of heart. Though their confinement is rare, it's in accordance with the law.

According to the Public Health Act, a magistrate has the power to send a person suffering from an infectious disease to a place of isolation and be detained until he or she is free from infection or until the magistrate cancels the order.

If found guilty, one is liable to a fine of up to Sh30,000 or a jail term of up to three years or to both. But the Head of Mission of Medicins Sans Fronteirs in the Kenya French Office Markus Boeing insists such an action is tantamount to imprisoning someone for being ill.

"It will not help the situation. The disease demands extreme caution, but creating panic worsens the problem. People will fear to go and get tested," Mr Markus, whose organisation also fights TB and operates dozens of clinics, said.

"Instead of protecting the poor, it puts them behind bars," Benard Waruingi, a human rights activist added.

"By failing to take the drugs, they exposed the general public to risk of contacting TB," said Nandi Central District defaulter tracing coordinator Zacharia Maina.

Public health officials argue that it's better to exchange a few peoples civil liberties in order protect the larger public from widespread harm.