The Government of Kenya interventions on COVID-19 is bearing fruits after recovery of patients surpassed the 100 mark today.
Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) for Health, Dr. Rashid Aman announced that in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health has discharged eight patients from hospitals bringing to 106 the total number of our recoveries.
“We have noted that the number of recoveries is steadily going up while fatalities have stagnated,” Dr. Rashid said while updating the media COVID-19 at Afya house.
He highlighted that in the last one week, the number of those who have died from COVID-19 has remained at 14 an indication of the dedicated healthcare workforce and announced that in the last 24 hours the ministry has sampled 500 cases out of which, twelve 12 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed bringing the total to 355.
Eight of these cases are from Nairobi and four from Mombasa. All are Kenyans, aged between 14 and 60 years and three have a recent history of travel from Somali.
The Nairobi cases, Dr. Rashid said are spread out between Kibera (2), Karen (1), Dandora (1), Eastleigh (1), Kasarani (1), South B (1) and Umoja (1) while Mombasa’s four (4) cases arenfrom Mvita-Kuze (1), Mishomoroni (1), Mvita-Bondeni (1) and Barsheba (1).
He acknowledged Absa Bank Kenya, PLC and Minet Kenya Insurance, who are now providing psychological support care to health care workers and those in quarantine facilities, isolation centres and their families. “Those who may be experiencing psychological distress can reach out to them on 20204# for counselling and support,” Dr. Rashid advised.
He also thanked the Mama Mbogas, boda boda operators, matatu operators, the youth, taxi drivers, local entrepreneurs and many others for their contribution and advised them to remain focused and maintain the course.
The CAS also reported that the National Emergency Response Committee (NERC) Coronavirus, met today and will soon be releasing guidelines for partial reopening of eateries and restaurants.
NERC however has directed that the testing of track drivers to start immediately at all border crossing points and urged the County Governments to increase training of their health care workers by utilizing the already trained personnel as trainers.
He also reported that the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the County Governments will identify Covid 19 isolation facilities at County Level 4 to 6 Facilities and also urged the Counties to strengthen the multi sectoral structures and make use of the the new guidelines on Nutrition to educate their communities on how to stay healthy.
The CAS also advised Kenyans to protect themselves against malaria during this period since the symptoms of malaria such as fever headache joint pains and nausea are coincidentally same as those for Covid 19.
The Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof. George Magoha who was also present announced that school holiday has been pushed for another one month due to covid 19.
Students who were on the normal vocation in April and were to end on the 4th of May will now extend their holiday by one month effective of the date of opening, he said.
“During this intervening period there will be many interventions that will come up depending on how the government is able to control Covid 19,” he noted.
He also clarified that whenever the examination is going to be administered, every Kenyan child will be given an opportunity to cover whatever time that is lost before the examination is administered.
“At this point the government has not decided to postpone both KCPE and KCSE. Let the children enjoy their last week on holiday and then start the one month that has been added to them,” Dr. Magoha said.
The government has been working on scenarios to be rolled out to mitigate effects of Covid-19 on school calendar considering most of them are being used for quarantine.
Governor Mohammed Kuti also urged the Kenya bureau of standards to enhance their capacity at County level so that manufacturing of masks and other protective equipment is not only centralized in Nairobi but also in counties to benefit young people and women groups who are manufacturing masks
On the issue of malaria and Stigma, the Governor noted that pregnant mothers are fearing to go to health facilities; immunization has also gone down and thus efforts are being made to identify Covid health centres away from other normal health facilities to attend to other ailments .
Dr. Kuti also acknowledged that mass testing is still a bit of challenge because of the reagents which are scarce globally arguing that currently there are only 5000 but the government will receive 24,000 more testing kits that will see increase in the countries capability to test more people
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Health, Kenya.
