3M Kenyans may already be infected with coronavirus, Mwangangi says

Kenya’s current positivity rate stands at 7.9%, Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi revealed on Thursday.

According to Dr. Mwangangi, the figure is based on the 31,000 case load and sample sizes analyzed in the last 34 weeks.

“This positivity rate has steadily increased from an initial 2% that was reported at the beginning of the pandemic and it points to an acceleration in the rate of transmission of the disease,” Dr. Mwangangi said.

“If we were to look and extrapolate this 7.9% positivity rate assuming a population of about 47million it would mean right now in the country we have about 3million cases,” she explained.

The Health CAS stated that the change in the positivity rate from the beginning of the pandemic to date points out that the curve is not flattening.

She said the ministry had observed a plateau between Week 28 and 31 which could indicate a peak in the rate of transmission and a steady decline in positivity rate in the current week 33 which could indicate a decreasing rate of transmission.

However, Dr. Mwangangi clarified that global benchmark from the World Health Organization (WHO) advises a rate of 5% or lower for at least 14 days as a measure of decline of the pandemic.

On Thursday, Kenya reported 426 more coronavirus cases: the total caseload now stands at 31,441.

The new cases are from 5,158 samples tested in the last 24 hours.

10 more patients succumbed to the virus raising the death toll to 516 while 257 were discharged increasing total recoveries to 17,869.

“The biggest proportion of our case load are people aged between 30 – 39 years, which is about 33% of the total caseload…” – Dr. Patrick Amoth pic.twitter.com/pnisYMvkwy

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) August 20, 2020