Jigger infested man in Kisii says he needs more than just prayers

He is single, lonely, dejected and infested with jiggers.

Nobody ever comes to his aid, except for prayers occasionally offered by his church, which he says are not enough to save him from his predicament.

This is the current state of Mr Denis Isoe Nyang’au, a resident of Mwembe estate in Kisii Town.

He limps along with difficulty, the effect of jiggers that have affected his limbs, rendering him frail and malnourished.

He lives in a rundown three-room mud-walled house. Mounds of soil in the sitting room and soiled sleeping rags is all that he owns.

The Nation caught up with him staggering alone out of his dilapidated house at ten in the morning.

His plight is more amplified by the fact that nobody was on sight to attend to him.

A walking distance separates him from the seat of the Kisii County government, yet Mr Nyangau’s life is an epitome of poverty, loneliness, hunger and frailty.

The jigger menace is fast driving him to the edge of life if urgent intervention measures are not taken.

ABANDONED AFTER MOTHER DIED

“My mother died when I was a child. I did not see her myself because she died when I was young.

"Here I live among my uncles, aunts and grandmother yet nobody ever pays me a visit,” he says.

Most parts of his legs and arms are infested with jiggers.

His surroundings are a perfect breeding ground for fleas.

“My grandmother left me here by myself and went to live with her elderly son.

“She left me to fend for myself but I hardly manage to walk around because of my condition,” he narrates.

Nyangau says he dropped out of Nyamage Primary School at Standard Four after his mother died.

‘Since then, I have had nobody to help me. I wanted to continue with my studies but lack of money held me back.

“What I need right now, after getting well, is money to help me start some business to help me feed myself,” he said

He said the house in which he lives has contributed a lot to the jigger menace.

HARDLY SLEEPS

“I barely sleep. There are fleas all over the place. I feel a lot of pain on my feet and hands where the jiggers have infested.

“Hardly does anyone comes to check out on me including my grandma. They just left and forgot about me,” he said.

Even the nearby Catholic Church, where he is a member, has not come to his aid, he said.

“They no longer come here after I asked them if they could help me with anything else besides prayers,” he told the Nation.

He said his relatives had given him a wide berth due to his condition.

“There are others who just stand at a distance and ask if I have woken up alive in the morning.”

He said his condition has been made worse after family members warned him against going round the estate begging for food.

“Whenever I was hungry I would go to liquor joints and they would give me something to eat. This helped me a lot.

"They (family members) warned me against it yet they never give me food to eat,” he said.

Mr Kefa Nyakundi, a volunteer community worker in the estate, says the jigger problem has become acute.

He said victims of the jigger menace are shunned by their kin.

“I have attended to numerous cases here,” he said as he applied drugs on the infected parts of Mr Nyangau’s body.

For the last one week he has been attending to Nyangau’s condition and there are signs of improvement, he said.