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Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, who in a statement on Saturday said the national coronavirus infections tally now stands at 32,118.
Some 355 new coronavirus cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours, pushing the national tally to 32,118.
Out of the 5,724 samples tested in the last 24 hours, 339 positive tests were from Kenyans and 16 foreigners.
In a statement to newsrooms on Saturday, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said the youngest patient in the latest pool was a two-year-old baby and the oldest 81 years.
Some 296 patients recovered from the disease, with 202 being from the home-based care programme and 94 from various hospitals.
The home-based care, launched in June, was aimed at easing the burden on already overwhelmed public hospitals many of which were nearing their full capacities.
President Uhuru Kenyatta at the time said home-based care would be necessary “because 80 per cent of Covid-19 patients in Kenya, like the rest of the world, are asymptomatic”.
Acting Health Director General Patrick Amoth had then said not every patient would qualify for home-based care. “Selection of patients will be based on the risk posed through individual assessment.”
He added: “We will assess your home to know many rooms are there, how many people you live with and if you have anybody else in your house who is ill. We’ll also need to know if you have very young children. Do you have a caregiver who can be trained to support you during the process? All those are captured in our guidelines.”
The total number of recoveries now stands at 18,453.
Sadly, 10 patients succumbed to teh disease, bringing the fatality to 542.
The World Health Organization hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday the world needs to unite and succeed in finding a vaccine.
“And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now,” he told a briefing in Geneva.
“But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it. So we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology.
“That is really key with utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccine.”
The WHO has always been cautious about giving estimates on how quickly the pandemic can be dealt with while there is no proven vaccine.
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