Ministry of Health Director General Patrick Amoth on Thursday poked holes in claims that there have been 4,000 teenage pregnancies from Machakos since the onset of Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
"We officially declared the first Covid-19 case in Kenya on March 13; on average, mothers who come for antenatal services in a health care facility come in their third trimester. So if you go back to March from June 18, we are talking of a first or second early trimester so its very unlikely that even if these young girls fell pregnant they have already gone to the facilities for somebody to verify that they are indeed pregnant," he said.
However, the DG said division reproductive health officers are looking into data for verification as it may not be far-fetched.
"According to the Kenya developed Health sector survey 2019, 400, 000 teenagers get pregnant every year. So one county recording 4000 would also not be far-fetched," he said.
Meanwhile, Education CS George Magoha earlier on Thursday dismissed the reported number of close to 153,000 teenage pregnancies during the Covid-19 period as obnoxious.
He also questioned the source of alarming teenage pregnancy cases among school going girls saying that they could be exaggerated figures by certain bodies targeting donor funding and pushing for inclusion of sex education in the curriculum.
He said his ministry would investigate the data and conduct a survey to ascertain the numbers.
“I do not deny that there are cases of school going girls who have become pregnant but the number are too high and it could be an exaggeration by some Non-Governmental Organisations who want to push an agenda,” he said.
