NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 26 – The Council of Governors Thursday said that only 12 counties are compliant on an agreement to set up 300 isolation beds per county as part of measures to facilitate the easing of COVID-19 containment directives on July 6.
While issuing a progress report on state of the preparedness of counties to President Uhuru Kenyatta, CoG Chairperson Wycliffe Oparanya noted that 36 counties have a cumulative sum of 343 ICU beds while 28 counties have a total of 337 ventilators.
The Kakamega governor said Counties had attained a total of 6,898 isolation beds against the national target of 30,500 units.
He noted that a total of 16,914 health personnel had been trained on COVID-19 management among them 59,449 community health volunteers.
Oparanya, nonetheless assured that counties have enhanced their response measures highlighting the role played by the President in the fight against the pandemic which as of Thursday had infected claimed 132 lives. Kenya has since March reported 5384 infections out of which 1,857 recoveries have been registered.
“Through your directive that allowed County Governments to procure non-pharmaceuticals from other agencies, Counties have enhanced their response measures,” Governor Oparanya said of the President.
He said the COG is working with Ministry of Health to develop a guideline on home-based COVID-19 management at the devolved units.
While expressing his support for the gradual re-opening of the economy, he said reopening measures should be subjected to a strict COVID-19 containment protocols in businesses premises, places of worship and inter-county travel.
“We propose that a multi-agency approach is applied on disease containment through improvement of testing capacity; contact tracing and enforcing the social distancing mechanisms,” Oparanya advised
“The reopening of the economy will have a County specific context. This will consider the County specific sector priorities and the health system ability to cope,” he added.
