Covid-19: 5 more Kenyans test positive raising number to 189
Kenya's total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases rose to 189 on Friday, with the Health ministry's announcement of five more cases.
Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe told a press conference that all the new patients were Kenyans.
Mr Kagwe said only one of the patients, who were among 504 people tested in the last 24 hours, had a history of travel.
He said two were male and three female; three cases were recorded in Mombasa and one each in Nairobi and Nyandarua counties.
CS Kagwe further announced that 10 more people who had tested negative twice would be discharged from the Mbagathi isolation facility.
As such, the number of recoveries rose to 22.
EQUIPMENT
The ministry also addressed the matter of testing, saying that by Friday, more than 100,000 health workers had been trained and that the capacity had increased to 600 tests a day.
He said Kenya had tested a total of 6,192 samples by Friday and that health workers were the priority.
"Today we received Roche machines so we will be able to test automatically. We can now use them at Kemri," he said.
CS Kagwe further reported that the hiring of more health workers would be done by county service boards
MASKS
The government also said that with the requirement for all Kenyans to wear masks in public, their disposal would be a challenge.
He noted, however, that the ministry was developing a protocol for this.
"In the meantime, we are all advised to properly dispose of the masks to avoid contamination," he said.
While thanking Kenyans for complying with measures to curb spread of the virus, CS Kagwe reiterated the importance of active participation by youths.
"The disease is not slowing but if we continue to comply, we can arrest it," he said. "We can’t afford to relax especially [considering that] countries [such as the] US and Italy can be overwhelmed."
CASE PROJECTIONS
The government has continued to reiterate the need for the public to follow its directives on curbing spread of the coronavirus, the latest key requirement being wearing masks in public.
The Health ministry warned on Wednesday that the number of Covid-19 cases is likely to go into the thousands and overwhelm hospitals.
Chief Administrative Secretary Mercy Mwangangi said the government still stood by earlier projections that the country could have 5,000 cases by mid-April and 10,000 by end of April.
She said the increased numbers will cause a strain on health facilities, hence the need for home-based care protocols for patients with mild symptoms.
The Covid-19 disease has killed at least 96,966 people worldwide since it was first reported in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019.
At least 1,619,073 infections and 365,847recoveries have been reported globally, according to Worldometer's count on Friday.
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