Covid-19: Kenya cases cross 6,000 mark as 35 more leave hospital
What you need to know:
Two patients succumbed to the virus, taking the national death toll from the virus stands at 143.
Kenya’s Covid-19 cases increased to 6,070 after 259 people tested positive from 2,718 samples in the last 24 hours, Health Chief Administrative Secretary Mercy Mwangangi has said.
During the Ministry of Health’s daily briefing on the virus at Afya House, Nairobi on Sunday, Dr Mwangangi said that another 35 people were discharged from various hospitals after full recovery.
RECOVERIES
The number of recoveries has now increased to 1,971, while two patients succumbed to the virus, taking the national death toll from the virus stands at 143.
Of the 259 new cases, Dr Mwangangi said 156 are Kenyans while three are foreigners.
In terms of gender distribution, she said that there were 159 male and 100 female patients aged between eight months and 92 years old.
Health Acting Director-General Dr Patrick Amoth said counties had met most of the Covid-19 containment measures and there is a likelihood that the country will be opened.
In a meeting last week, county chiefs agreed on six parameters to determine the relaxation of the lockdown.
ISOLATION CENTRES
Besides the establishment of isolation centres with a minimum of 300 beds, one of the parameters discussed was on emergency preparedness especially the establishment of rapid response teams to deal with the cases as they arise.
According to Dr Mwangangi, the Ministry of Health has trained 60,000 community health volunteers who are undertaking surveillance across the country.
She said while opening up the economy is dependent on counties’ preparedness, most of the parameters had been met.
“We are prepared in terms of testing and surveillance and we are sufficiently ready when it comes to treatment because we have case management protocols and experts and we have managed over 1,000 recoveries, so we know how to handle asymptomatic, mild, moderate and severe cases,” said Dr Mwangangi.
