CS Kagwe shifts blame as Covid positivity rate now hits 22 per cent

L-R - Health Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Mercy Mwangangi with Health CS Mutahi Kagwe at a press briefing [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has absolved his ministry from blame over unpreparedness of counties for the Covid-19 third wave.

Yesterday the country recorded a positivity rate of 22 per cent after 1,130 of the 5,119 people sampled were diagnosed with the virus.

This is the highest positivity rate registered since the first case of the virus was reported in the country in March 2020. The number of fatalities also rose to 2,024 after 12 more people died.

Mr Kagwe, while issuing a daily brief of the Covid-19 situation in the country, also maintained that no person who was not on the priority list had been vaccinated.

The CS, while responding to the reports of county government unpreparedness, said the national government had done its part in ensuring they were all equipped.

Give account

He said the counties should give an account of what they had done with disbursed resources. 

Some of the support was in kind, which include 200 ventilators distributed to the counties. 

“The support county governments were given by the national government is a substantial amount to cover for at least some level of preparedness,” said Kagwe, asking county governments to show how they used the resources. 

“It is important for counties to show where the 300 beds are, where the intensive care unit beds are. As far as we are concerned, the national government has assisted the counties,” he said. 

In the wake of the second wave of Covid-19 last year, the national government disbursed Sh5 billion to counties to aid preparedness. Each of the 47 counties was expected to set up a 300-bed isolation facility, with some of the beds being converted to serve in the Intensive Care Units. 

While those aged 58 or above contribute 60 per cent of the fatalities, Kagwe noted that they only accounted for 16 per cent of the infected. He said this was the reason they were in the priority list for vaccination.

The CS, while rubbishing reports of people not on the priority list being vaccinated, insisted that the ongoing exercise would follow set guidelines.

There have been reports of the country using the 1.12 million AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccines to inoculate diplomats at the embassies and United Nations, and the public not being in priority categories.

Match doses

“Those carrying out the vaccination will have to give an account of all the doses and they (doses) have to be matched to an available person,” he said.

Kagwe, however, noted that some facilities turned away staff and healthcare workers in the priority list because they did not work in centres offering vaccination.

“Any eligible person can turn up in any designated vaccination centre and get the vaccine for free,” he said. Out of the 1.12 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine the country has received, 530,000 have been distributed and 50,000 doses given by end of yesterday.