Kenya’s Covid positivity rate rises to 11.1%

The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in Kenya has increased by 837, raising total confirmed positive cases to 191,020, the Health ministry announced on Thursday.

This followed the analysis of 7,545 samples within a 24-hour period, which raised the total number of tests carried out so far to 2,036,472.

At the same time, the positivity rate stood at 11.1%, an increase from 9.4% the previous day.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said the youngest new patient is a three-month-old child, while the oldest is 94 years.

From the new infections, 797 are Kenyans while 40 are foreigners, out of which 435 are males and 402 females.

Nairobi County, the country’s capital, leads with 376 new cases, Mombasa 87, Nyeri 45, Kiambu 34, Kilifi 33, Uasin Gishu 32, Nakuru 26, Siaya 23, and Kajiado 21, with other counties reporting less than 20 cases.

CS Kagwe further announced nine more deaths, all of them being late deaths confirmed after an audit of facility records in April, May, June and July 2021. This raises Kenya’s Covid-19 deaths to 3,746.

The CS also reported that another 340 patients had recovered from the disease, 272 of whom were under the home-based isolation and care while 68 were discharged from various hospitals across the country. This raises total recoveries in Kenya to 180,420.

As of Thursday, Mr Kagwe said 1,058 patients had been hospitalised countrywide while 4,407 were being treated at home.

Of those in hospital, 129 patients were in intensive care units — 38 of them on ventilator support — 65 on supplemental oxygen and 26 under observation.

Another 219 patients were separately on supplemental oxygen, 201 of them being in general wards and 18 in high dependency units.

Vaccine doses
By Thursday, 1,590,765 vaccine doses had been administered across the country. 1,033,296 had received the first dose while 557,467 got the second dose.

The uptake rate of the second dose was 54%, with the majority of the recipients being male (55%).

The proportion of fully vaccinated adults is two%.

Olajumoke Adeleke/EA