The Health Ministry is working closely with its Interior and Coordination counterpart to ensure Covid-19 deaths that occur at community level are recorded as soon as possible.
This will be done through the civil registration of births in an effort that aims to ensure data on deaths is collected and merged with deaths reported at health facilities.
Data shows that to date, more than 211 million cases have been reported globally with 4.4 million deaths.
In Kenya 4,600 deaths have been reported since the first case of the disease was reported in the country in March last year, with 36 deaths having been reported on Wednesday, 36 on Tuesday and 31 on Monday.
“Reporting of deaths is not real time so they will always be a lag especially when deaths happen at community level. It takes a bit of time before the health facilities are able to capture that data and transmit it to the national platform and it is not unique to Kenya,” Health DG Patrick Amoth said.
Amoth spoke on Wednesday when the ministry received a donation of PPES worth Sh32.1 million from the World Health Organisation with support from the European Union.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
“If you look at the excess mortality it is basically because of that lag in terms of reporting the deaths especially at community level because for you to report a Covid death, that death must be matched by a positive Covid-19 test so if there is any variant then there will always be a delay in terms of marrying those numbers,” he added.
Of concern however is that more than 90 per cent of the deaths are occurring among people aged 50 years and above, yet the vaccination rate among this bracket remains low.
Data from the ministry shows that out of the 2.6 million people targeted within this population of people aged 58 and above, only 9.1 per cent have been fully vaccinated, which means only 237,050 people have received the two doses of the vaccine.
“When you look at the people who have been vaccinated under those who are 58 years and above they, form 2.6 million of our population but only 9.1 per cent of that population has been fully vaccinated so our message to them is to come out get vaccinated and get protected,” Amoth said.
The ministry has emphasised the need to continue adhering to the containment measures put in place such as social distancing and washing of hands, with the DG noting that the country is still in the midst of the fourth wave hence we are not out of the woods yet.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
The DG admitted that the demand for oxygen in the country was still very high based on the number of admissions and those on supplemental oxygen.
“We are at the climax point in terms of the numbers, when you look at the number of people who are admitted in critical care that stands at about 156 as at yesterday 84 of those were on ventilator support the remaining on supplemental oxygen,” he said.
“We have another close to 800 people who are in HDU and general wards who are also on supplementary oxygen so the total number of people on oxygen stands close to 1,000 so demand for oxygen is quite high.”
The DG however noted that should the number of discharges supersede the number of admissions the country will get to a point where the number of cases will begin to decline. BY THE STAR
