Virus infections up by 102 to hit 35,205 cases

Health Chief Administrative Secretary Rashid Aman at a past update on the status of the Covid-19 pandemic in Homa Bay County, September 3, 2020. [File, Standard]

Kenya on Monday reported 102 new Covid-19 cases to raise the country’s case load to 35,205, the Ministry of Health said in Nairobi as it cautioned that the infection curve had not flattened.

The new cases were from some 2,668 samples tested for the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative tests to 477,145.

Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Dr Rashid Aman said all the new infections, save for nine, were of Kenyans.

The youngest case was of a one -year-old infant while the oldest was 86 years old, Dr Aman said.

For the first time, the number of males and females tallied at 51 cases each.

The cases are distributed across the country as follows: Nairobi (41), Kitui (11), Kiambu (7), Mombasa (6), Busia (5), Turkana (4), Nyeri (4), Taita Taveta (4). Meru, Kajiado, Machakos, Makueni, Bungoma and Kilifi and Murang’a each had two cases. Kajiado, Machakos, Makueni, Bungoma and Kilifi each reported a single case.

Dr Aman further reported that 80 more patients had recovered to take the tally to 21,310.

Thirty patients had recovered from home while 50 were discharged from various hospitals. In recent weeks, the trend has been of more recoveries of patients under the home-based care programme.

Head Public Health Dr Francis Kuria said there were still some 664 patients still admitted in hospitals, of which 25 were in Intensive Care Units and 10 on supplemental oxygen.

Dr Kuria added that about 1,054 are in the home-based care programme.

Unfortunately, the number of fatalities rose to 599 after another two patients succumbed to the virus.

As of Monday, Kenya's case fatality rate was 1.7 per cent.

"This is extremely a low rate considering in the western countries it ranges from about 4 per cent to as high as eight per cent," said Dr Aman said.

The CAS added that many hypotheses had been proposed to explain the low fatalities in Africa, including that the population was young among other factors.