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Some 212 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in the country, pushing the infection tally to 34,705.
Announcing the new case load from Homabay County, Health CAS Dr Rashid Aman said the Ministry of Health had tested at least 3,937 samples in the last 24 hours.
This now puts the total tested samples in the country at 463,499.
All the new confirmed cases are of Kenyans save for fourteen foreigners.
According to the Health Ministry, the youngest infection was of a one-month-old infant and the oldest a 76-year-old.
“We continue to notice a skew in gender not just in Kenya but across the globe,” CAS Aman said, adding that 132 of the new cases were male while 80 were female.
At the same time, Kenya has reported 195 more recoveries, bringing to 20,644 recoveries registered since the first case was confirmed on March 13.
The CAS added that one hundred and forty-one patients who recovered were under the home-based care programme, while 54 were discharged from various facilities across the country.
Unfortunately, Kenya has lost four more people to the disease. The Covid-19 fatalities are now at 585
On the level of testing in the country which has gained national attention recently, Dr Aman said: “We need to acknowledge that we have done a lot in reaching this number.”
The CAS was in Homabay accessing the county’s preparedness in handling the coronavirus. He said that despite the low numbers, they are convinced that the county is well prepared to tackle Covid-19.
Homabay currently has 62 registered Covid-19 cases.
It has also put up 317 beds ready for occupation by patients and 10 ICU beds for severe Covid-19 cases.
Kemsa probe
The new cases were confirmed amid an ongoing probe at the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (Kemsa) over the misappropriation of Covid-19 funds.
Appearing before the Health Committee at Parliament on Thursday, Transport CAS Chris Obure revealed that 21 Covid-19 equipment packages donated to Kenya by the Jack Ma Foundation are still missing.
Obure said that they under-received the packages, which were en route Kenya from Ethiopia.
“What we were supposed to receive were 697 packages, but when that consignment arrived in the country it had 21 packages less. the 21 packages never arrived in Kenya so that shortfall was in Ethiopia, not here,” he said.
Yesterday, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said no money was lost to graft but accused Kemsa of mismanagement by over-procuring health equipment for Covid-19 and inefficiency.
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