Mutahi Kagwe, the Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Health in Kenya, on Sunday revealed that 685 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the last 24 hrs.
The latest infections bring total cases in Kenya to 44,881.
Kagwe said the current infection rate had skyrocketed to 12 per cent from the previous 4 per cent when President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a partial reopening of the economy.
He said cumulative tests now stand at 621, 976 since the first case was confirmed in March.
Kagwe said out of the 685 cases, 635 are Kenyans while 50 are foreigners.
“Out of this number 456 are males while 229 are females with the youngest being a one-year-old babby and the oldest being 99-year old,” Kagwe said.
Kagwe said there is a worrying concern of increasing ICU cases with 28 patients currently being admitted.
Ten of the patients are on ventilators, 14 on supplementary oxygen and 4 under observation.
“With these trends, it is obvious that we are staring at a second wave of the virus and if we are not cautious enough, it will treat us abnormally,” he said.
Kagwe said there are over 1,000 admissions in various health facilities with the majority originating from prisons.
Kagwe said Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru counties are on the spot with escalating cases.
According to the CS, some 105 patients have been discharged after full recovery bringing the total recoveries to 31,857.
Out of this, 73 are from home-based care programme while 32 are from various health facilities across the country.
Unfortunately, 7 more patients have died in the same period bringing the total number of fatalities to 832.
