Kenya records 840 new COVID-19 cases, positivity rate at 10.3pc

The Ministry of Health announced 840 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, tested from a sample of 8,129 in the last one day.

The new infections, with a positivity rate of 10.3 percent  push the total of confirmed positive cases in the country to 239,692 and the total of tests conducted so far to 2,406,052.

The Health Ministry said in a statement to the press that Nairobi leads with the highest tally of new infections, reporting 252 new cases followed by Nyeri with 73 and Nakuru with 59.

“From the cases 812 are Kenyans while 28 are foreigners. 438 females while 402 are males.” the Ministry said. “The youngest is a two-year-old child while the oldest is 100 years.”

The rest of the infections are distributed as follows: Murang’a 52, Kiambu 52, Uasin Gishu 46, Kajiado 41, Trans Nzoia 17, Nyandarua 17, Machakos 16, Nandi 16, Makueni 14, Kericho 12, Embu 12, Garissa 12, Laikipia 12, Marsabit 11, Busia 11, Bomet 11, Bungoma 10, Kilifi 10, Mombasa 10, Kisii 8, Narok 7, Tana River 7, Kitui 6, Isiolo 6, Elgeyo Marakwet 5, Meru 5, Taita Taveta 5, Kisumu 4, Lamu 4, West Pokot 4, Mandera 3, Tharaka Nithi 3, Homa Bay 2, Kakamega 2, Turkana 2 and Siaya 1

A total of 1,863 patients are currently admitted in various health facilities countrywide, while 4,937 are under the Home-Based Isolation and Care program.

“147patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 92 of whom are on ventilatory support and 46 on supplemental oxygen. 9 patients are under observation.” the Ministry said on Saturday.

Another 767 patients are separately on supplemental oxygen with 700 of them in general wards and 67 in High Dependency Units (HDU).

Meanwhile, the total of recoveries has hit 227,274, after 1,237 patients recovered in the lost one day.

“1,104 of the new recoveries were from the Home-Based Isolation and Care program while 133 are from various health facilities countrywide,” the Ministry said.

At the same time, 21 new deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours. All of them were discovered after facility records dates in May, August and September 2021.

The new infections push the death toll to 4,778.

Vaccination.

Kenya hopes to flatten the COVID-19 curve in the next three weeks, owing to the rising number of those vaccinated.

Already, more vaccines are streaming in, with the latest being a consignment of 141,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson single shot vaccine that arrived on Friday.

As of September 3, a total of 2,854,662 vaccines had been administered across the country; 2,043,504 of those were first doses while 811,158 were second doses.

“The proportion of adults now fully vaccinated is 2.98 percent,” the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

The uptake of the second dose by Priority Groups was as follows: Aged 58 years and above 240,916, Others 243,762 Health Workers 134,954, Teachers 123,402 while Security Officers were at 68,124.