NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 11 – Kwale County has surpassed the minimum 300 isolation bed capacity required for each county, in readiness for a peak in COVID-19 infections.
Health Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Mercy Mwangangi on Saturday said the County has 424 isolation beds with 10 Intensive Care Unit capable beds and 13 ventilators.
To compliment Governor Salim Mvurya’s efforts, the Ministry of Health donated an additional five ventilators to the County.
“We recognize that sustained cooperation and collaboration between the two levels of government including the public is very important in this fight against COVID,” she said.
“It is a war that requires simple ammunition such as ensuring you are maintaining hygiene,” CAS Mwangangi affirmed.
Kwale has reported 139 cases since its first local infection was reported with 1,598 samples tested since.
Mwangangi noted cases of coronavirus within the coastal county have been on decline with only nine active cases currently under home-based care and none under institution-based isolation.
“We are glad to note that four months since our first case, we have all learnt vital lessons that will be crucial in the days ahead. We are glad that most of our people are increasingly complying with the containment measures,” the CAS said.
CAS Mwangangi attributed the decline in cases of infection in Kwale to close collaboration between the two levels of government.
“We have done everything possible and we will continue putting more measures to ensure the rate of infections continues to decline,” Governor Mvurya said.
Mwangangi urged members of the public to take individual responsibility to ensure the pandemic is contained- more so after President Uhuru Kenyatta lifted the cessation of movement containment measure imposed on high-risk counties of Nairobi, Mombasa and Mandera.
“Any level of complacency has a potential of changing these numbers (of Kwale county) within a very short time,” she cautioned.
Kwale County has so far trained 1, 119 health care workers on COVID-19 case management, while 160 others have been recruited under the Universal Health Coverage programme.
Mwangangi spoke on a day the country recorded 278 new coronavirus cases from a sample size of 1,403.
The national tally of coronavirus disease since the first incident was reported stands at 9, 726.
