Govt allays fears over Indian COVID-19 variant, positivity rate at 9.7pc

The Government has allayed fears over the Indian COVID-19 variant saying Kenya’s borders with neighboring countries are well secured by its medical teams.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said there have been concerns with regards to the situation in India and more specifically, reports of one case in Uganda.

“Those coming in and going out of the country must strictly adhere to the travel COVID- 19 protocols. We continue to monitor the situation on this virus and emerging issues will be communicated to the public as and when it arises. As for now there is no cause for worry,” he said on Friday.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s positivity rate was recorded at 9.7per cent after 497 people tested positive for COVID-19 from a sample size of 5,117 in the last 24 hours.

From the cases, 492 are Kenyans while five are foreigners: 282 are males and 215 are females. The youngest is a six-month-old-baby while the oldest is 96 years.

Total confirmed cases in the country are now 159,318 and cumulative tests so far conducted are 1,669,552.

Vaccination against COVID-19

As of today, a total of 876,708 persons have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19 disease countrywide.

Of these 271,079 are aged 58 years, health workers are 157,211, teachers 135,957, security officers 73,544 while another 238,917 are in the ‘others’ category.

17 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours with 13 of them having occurred on diverse dates within the last one month.

The Health Ministry said four are late death reports from facility record audits. This pushes cumulative fatalities to 2,724.

New deaths by age are as follows: 0-9 years (0), 10-19 years (0), 20-29 (1), 30-39 years (0), 40-49 years (1), 50-59 years (3), 60 years and above (12).

Cumulative deaths by age;

• 0-9 years (52)
• 10-19 years (19)
• 20-29 (101)
• 30-39 years (230)
• 40-49 years (353)
• 50-59 years (597)
• 60 years and above (1,355)

A total of 1,311 patients are currently admited in various health facilities countrywide, while 6,650 patients are on Home Based Isolation and Care.

188 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 32 of whom are on ventilatory support and 120 on supplemental oxygen. 36 patients are on observation.

Another 137 patients are separately on supplemental oxygen with 130 of them in general wards and 7 in High Dependency Units (HDU).