Border entry points have emerged as hotbeds of coronavirus infection.
This is the reason four regional Heads of State convened a virtual meeting this week to determine ways and means of dealing with cross-border transmissions.
East Africa’s borders are generally porous and allow easy movement. Official border crossings exist, but only for formal travellers.
Many communities that live along the borders have families and networks across the boundaries and normally move in and out of their countries at will without reference to those formal government processes.
In fact, some do not even have passports but travel as they do as a matter of course. East Africa finds itself in an awkward position.
Our neighbour to the east, Somalia, has never had a government for over two decades and anything goes. Rules and border posts do not exist and its citizens cross into other areas without restriction.
Kenya has suffered a great deal due to the influx of Somalia citizens, who come in through the unmarked borders and who, because they have families and relatives in either country, easily mix and settle here without raising an eyebrow.
A more poignant point is cross-border trade. Kenya remains East Africa’s major gateway through the Mombasa port.
Most of the countries depend on Kenya for exports and imports of their products. Now it has emerged that truckers ferrying goods to and from the port have become vulnerable to the coronavirus.
They are on the move, interact with many people and shelter in various places along the journey, exposing themselves to the contagion.
Which is why governments have now resolved that long-distance truckers must be tested and certified before being allowed to travel.
This is critical to contain the spread. Testing must be thorough and foolproof. Moreover, they have to be speedy so as not derail movements for traders.
Even so, we call for tighter and well-coordinated measures to manage border posts and control truckers.
This is particularly so with Tanzania, which, although emerging as a concentration for high infections in the region, has done pretty little to restrict movements among its citizens and tame the tide.
Border posts and counties require special government intervention that include surveillance as well as testing and quarantine facilities.
Covid-19 is a transnational disease and combating it requires a regional approach. We implore East Africa’s heads of state to invest in systems and structures that can contain cross-boundary transmissions.
They must disabuse themselves of parochial national interests when the region is under existential threat.
