1,311 admissions as 497 test positive for Covid-19

Health care workers prepare to transport a COVID-19 patient from an intensive care unit (ICU) at hospital.[AP]

A total of 1,311 Covid-19 patients are currently admitted to various health facilities across the country.

Another 6,650 patients are on Home Based Isolation and Care.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe on Friday said 188 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit-ICU of whom 32 are on ventilatory support, 120 on supplemental oxygen and 36 under observations.

Another 137 patients are separately on supplemental oxygen with 130 of them in general wards and seven in the High Dependency Units-HDU.

This comes as 497 more people tested positive for the virus out of a sample size of 5,117 that was tested in the last 24 hrs.

Kagwe said the new cases represent a positivity rate of 9.7 per cent.

"From the new cases 492 are Kenyans while five are foreigners with 282 being males and 215 females," Kagwe said in a statement.

He said the youngest is a six-month-old baby while the oldest is 96 years.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 159,318 with cumulative tests done standing at 1,669,552.

Nairobi leads with 96 cases followed by Nakuru with 56 cases, Trans Nzoia 45, Kericho 44, Mombasa 41, Kisumu 38, Kiambu 22, Kisii 20, Uasin Gishu 17, Embu 16, Bomet and Meru 15 cases each.

While Mandera County has 8 cases, Kajiado and Siaya have seven cases each, Kitui has six cases, Machakos and Murang'a five cases each, Homa Bay four, Makueni, Bungoma, Garissa and Kilifi three cases each.

Laikipia, Nyandarua, Narok, Nyeri, Kwale and West Pokot counties have two cases each while Busia, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kakakmega, Migori, Nandi and Nyamira counties each has one case.

Sadly, 17 more patients have succumbed to the disease pushing the total number of deaths to 2,724 since the first case was reported in the country in March 2020.

Kagwe said of the new deaths, 13 of them occurred on diverse dates within the last one month and four are late death reports from facility record audits.

With regards to the ongoing vaccination exercise, Kagwe said as of April 30, 2021, some 876,708 persons have been vaccinated against the disease.

Of these, 271,079 are aged above 58 years, 157,211 are health workers, 135,957 are teachers, 73,544 are security officers while 238,917 are in the others category.