Chuka town residents were on Wednesday treated to rude shock after a thirsty tout drank sanitizer mistaking it for alcohol.
The middle-aged man operating at Ikuu taxicab stage grabbed the container of the clear liquid from a colleague who had just received it from the county public health officers who were distributing the disinfectant for sterilizing hands as a measure to curb spread of Covid-19.
The man popularly known to the town dwellers as Kiruthu (meaning beer in local dialect) due to his great love for liquor told The Press Point that he thought it was alcohol that they commonly call ‘Kibondi’.
“I knew he would never give me if I asked politely and that is why I grabbed and gulped it only to realize that it was not alcohol while I had already sipped it severally,” he said.
Worried of the consequences, his colleagues asked him to visit Chuka County Referral Hospital for medical attention but Kiruthu dismissed them as naïve and uninformed.
The public health officials asked the touts and bodaboda operators to strictly use the sanitizer for the intended purpose only.
