NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 15- Kenya on Monday recorded 147 new coronavirus cases from 2,063 samples raising the total caseload in the country to 103,014.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said that a five-month-old baby and an 88-year-old were among the new cases.
The CS said among the new cases, 119 were Kenyans while 28 were foreigners among them 75 males and 72 females.
He said 242 patients had recovered from the virus among151 from Home Based Care while 91 were discharged from various health facilities across the country.
The total recoveries stood at 85,250.
Fatalities remained at 1795 with no death recorded Monday.
Although the number of COVID-19 cases have significantly reduced in the last few months, Kenya is still enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew which is aimed at minimizing the spread of the virus.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has however hinted that he is likely to lift the curfew if Kenyans continue to observe the COVID-19 protocols.
The government is importing vaccines targeting to start with 16 million people by end of the year to suppress the virus with vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson and Johnson.
Of the 16 million, more than 1 million health care workers and essential providers will be among the first people to be vaccinated against COVID- later this month when the vaccines are expected to arrive in the country.
In phase two of the vaccination, which is set to kick off in July and end in June 2022, 9.7 million Kenyans will be vaccinated.
The Ministry of Health said it had recommended AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for clearance by World Health Organization (WHO) for importation to Kenya.
Willis Akwale, Chairperson of the Taskforce on Vaccine Deployment and Vaccination, said the country will only bring in vaccines that have stringent authorization.
“A decision has been made that we would have to bring into this country vaccines that have stringent regulatory authorization like World Health Organization and until just the other day, it was only Pfizer and Moderna that had received emergency use authorization by WHO but this week a recommendation for the AstraZeneca vaccine to receive the same has been made,” Akwale said.
“So there is no way we could have imported without that under the Covax Facility.”
He further announced that any vaccine that will be used in the country must have registration by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB).
“I am happy to report that in the last two weeks the manufacturers of various vaccines have submitted their dossier to the pharmacy board and we expect that in the coming week we could see based on how the dossier will be evaluated the registration of the vaccine by the pharmacy board for use in Kenya,” Akwale said.
Akwale further revealed that the government had already allocated Sh930 million for the procurement of the vaccines.
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