This weekend marks 100 days since the first case of COVID-19 disease was reported in Kenya.

The global coronavirus statistics indicate that 102,760 people have succumbed to the disease and the number continues to rise. The number of those that have so far tested positive for the disease,  currently stands at 1,700,435, and is quickly hurtling towards the two (2) million mark. out of these, 480,000 people have recovered.

In the next 21 day the Government of Kenya will be working with Africa CDC, WHO and other consulting partners to scale up testing, Dr. Mercy Mwangangi the Ministry of Health, Chief Administrative Secretary announced today.

“As we try and scale up mass testing, we are bound to get more cases of coronavirus within our population. So the next  two to three weeks will be very important for us as we first start our targeted testing of quarantine centers, then health care workers before rolling out to mass testing in  different institutions,” she said during the COVID-19 media briefing at Afya House.

Dr. Mwangangi announced that the government is looking at the different laboratories in the country that are already engaged in testing exercise and hopes to engage those that have been testing TB in the country.

“ We have 193 machines that are available and thus mass testing will indeed pick out the positive cases and we will be able to combat coronavirus disease,” she argued.

She revealed that in the last 24 hours the Government has managed to test 491 samples, out of which, two people one Kenyan and one foreigner have tested positive for Coronavirus disease. The two who had no history of travel hailed from Mombasa and Nairobi counties.

This now brings to 191 the number of confirmed cases in the country. The two cases, a two year old and a 32 year old, she explained were picked by surveillance teams.

So far, Dr. Mwangangi revealed that a total of 2,054 contacts have been monitored, out of which 1,546 have been discharged and a total of 508 contacts are being followed at the moment.

Out of the 191 cases now reported in the country, 109 are males and 82 females; 124 of the cases are aged between 30 years and 59 years, 50 cases are aged between 15 years and 29 years, seven are aged between 60 years and above and two are aged 2 years.

She also confirmed that today two more people have been discharged from hospital, bringing the number of those who have recovered and discharged to 24 persons.

The CAS thanked the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), for coordinating the production and distribution of sanitizers in the country.  So far 300,000 litres of sanitizers have been produced and sent to various government agencies for distribution to counties.

“KPC and its partners is revising the initial target of producing one million litres of sanitizer to 2.5 million litres. This will indeed boost the requirement to have as many Kenyans as possible to sanitize their hands,” she said.

The acting Director General of Health services, Dr. Patrick Amoth, added that the government has received testing kits from Roche diagnostics enough to be able to test 7,000 persons.

“We will be able to deploy this in KEMRI where we have three machines, KNH one, National Influenza center, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, KEMRI Alupe and Coast provincial hospital,” he noted.

Dr. Amoth also disclosed that the government is in discussion with the Chinese Embassy in both countries to ensure that Kenyans in China are protected and their rights are not violated because of Covid.-19.

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