A team of experts is looking into the unfolding scenarios where Mombasa and Turkana counties have witnessed a surge in Covid-19 cases at the weekend.
The two counties had recorded fewer cases, with the infection rate showing a downward trend in the past few months.
“Whereas it might seem like a surge, we cannot conclusively state so without proper facts,” Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said.
The team is expected to share their findings in due course to help guide the next course of action.
Mombasa recorded 20 out of the 48 new cases reported by the ministry yesterday. Eight of the new cases were from Jomvu, seven from Mvita, four from Changamwe and one from Likoni.
Nairobi and Mombasa have continued to record the highest attack rates at 454.6 and 215.4 per 100,000 population respectively, compared to the national rate of 76 per 100,000 people.
“This means there is a need to have enhanced intervention measures to curtail the spread of the virus in these two counties,” Mwangangi said.
Other counties that recorded new infections yesterday include Nairobi with 15, Tharaka Nithi with four, Kiambu, Kilifi and Meru with two cases each while Wajir and Homa Bay recorded one case each.
The new cases were from a sample size of 1,081 tests, bringing the total caseload in the country to 36,205 and the cumulative tests conducted so far to 498,733.
All the new cases were Kenyan, aged between 12 and 75 and comprising 31 males and 17 females.
On a positive note, 176 people recovered from the virus — 45 under the home-based care programme and 131 from health facilities.
The number of recoveries now stands at 23,243. However, two more patients succumbed to the virus, bringing total number of deaths to 624.
Health director general Patrick Amoth noted that the decisions to relax the current containment measures will depend on several factors alongside the curve trend.
“Trajectory of the curve has been on a downward trend but we need to sustain and maintain the social measures that we have continued to articulate failure to which there could easily be a reversal,” Amoth said.
Other parameters to be put into consideration include the number of cases in health facilities, the resilience of the healthcare system and the number of critical care cases in the facilities.
The number of patients under critical care has continued to decline from a high 60 patients at the peak of the virus to just 22 as of yesterday, with 15 on ventilator support and seven on supplementary oxygen.
Some 468 patients are in different facilities across the country and 1,681 patients under home-based care.
Kenya’s recovery rate stands at 64 per cent compared to the global rate of about 72 per cent.
“Remember as a country we are at the forefront of implementing home-based isolation and care and therefore we must get data from the lowest community levels so our reporting rate on recovery rate is lower than the global,” Amoth said.
“So together with these curves we can be able to say clearly that we are making progress but we should not drop the ball. We need to sustain and maintain the public health measures that we have put in place and continue to articulate otherwise these gains can easily be reversed.”
According to Amoth, the age group that is most affected by the virus is 30-39, which constitutes 33 per cent of the caseload.
