The Ministry of Health announced on Saturday 727 new Covid-19 cases.
The total diagnosed cases now stand at 21,363 persons, with 364 persons having died of Covid-19 related disease, a crude fatality rate of 1.65 per cent.
Of the Covid-19 cases announced to date, 70 per cent of them were diagnosed in July while 21 per cent of Covid-19 cases were announced in June. This suggests that infection is still spreading.
Meanwhile, Kenya continues to gradually reopen the country after four months of lockdown especially for Nairobi County and Mombasa County.
However, the number of Covid-19 cases on a week by week basis continue to rise.
Peter Goodman writing in The New York Times reports that Sweden, which did not insist on a lockdown, has a Covid-19 death rate per million persons higher than United States and that of their neighbours like Norway that have had government lockdown.
The rationale for lockdown was to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The Covid-19 crisis has been brought about by its potential to infect large numbers of people in a very short time. The last resort in the management of Covid-19 is the health worker.
By Wednesday last week, out of the total reported Covid-19 cases, 634 are healthcare workers (3 per cent).
Current statistics of healthcare workers employed and at work in Kenya are difficult to get. There are about 40,000 nurses actively working and about 3,500 doctors.
Testing for Covid-19 is still inadequate and not every health worker can access tests on demand. At the three per cent rate reported so far – 1,200 nurses and 105 doctors could be infected.
Compounding the problem of inadequate testing is that global demand for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) remains high and Kenya is not in a strong position to procure.
Despite efforts by industry to turn to local manufacture, it may not be sufficient to meet exponential demand as cases rise.
This disadvantages a country like Kenya at two levels: not being able to know who has been exposed and not being able to adequately protect those who might be exposed.
Dr Ayah is the director at the Science and Technology Park, University of Nairobi. This article was initially published in the Kenya Health System Covid-19 journal.
