NAIROBI, Kenya Mar 30 – The Ministry of Health says it is now projecting that the country could have at least 10,000 coronavirus cases by April 30.
Speaking during the ministry’s daily briefing, Acting Director General of Health Dr Patrick Amoth, said a forecast has extrapolated 1,000 cases by the end of the first week of April.
“We postulate that we will have 5,000 by mid-April and potentially 10,000 by the end of that month. Those are the numbers that we are working with in terms of how we preposition our personal protective equipment, how we preposition our human resources and how we preposition of isolation and quarantine facilities.”
“Nature sometimes does not work with science but we believe that if it works along that way, then the action that we take will be able to assure we will be in control,” he added.
Dr Amoth cited Kenya’s weak health system and the high burden of communicable diseases as among obstacles that could impede the fight to contain the spread of coronavirus.
“When we have community transmission as confirmed by the Minister, then especially those who are not adherent to the medicine and would have lack of viral suppression therefore could be at risk,” noted.
Amoth said the elderly are the most vulnerable with youth Kenya’s youthful population cautioned against practices that could see the virus spread to the vulnerable populations in the village.
“The youthful population could work to our advantage but our high burden of communicable diseases especially HIV could disrupt that advantage,” he indicated.
Kenya has recorded fifty coronavirus cases so far after registering eight new cases on Monday.