NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 4 – Staff at the State Department for Devolution, one of the two arms in the Ministry of Devolution and the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALS), proceeded for mandatory 14-day self-isolation on Monday after eighteen colleagues tested positive for coronavirus.
In an internal memo to staff members, the department’s Principal Secretary Charles Sunkuli said the staffers will report back on August 17.
The eighteen positive cases were picked from 128 samples analyzed during a targeted mass testing exercise.
“Following the mass testing for COVID-19 that was done on 23 July, 2020, it has come to our attention that 18 officers tested positive for the disease,” Sunkuli stated.
“The officers will be required to report back on August 17, 2020 for another round of mass testing,” Sunkuli said in the memo dated August 3.
The cases at the devolution ministry include the 544 new infections reported on Monday by the Ministry of Health.
During the regular briefing on the status of the pandemic, Health Chief Administrative Secretary Rashid Aman also reported that 263 COVID-19 patients had been cleared of the virus raising the country’s total number of recoveries to 8, 740.
Thirteen more people succumbed to the disease raising the total number of fatalities from COVID-19 to 382.