NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 19 – The Ministry of Health has reported 1,372 coronavirus cases detected from 5,635 samples rising registered infections to 263,707.
The country’s positivity rate stood at 24.4 per cent.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said Sunday 1,260 cases were reported among Kenyans while 112 were foreigners.
Kagwe stated that no death was recorded with cumulative fatalities standing at 5,353.
“Today 74 patients have recovered from the disease, 50 from various health facilities countrywide while 24 are from the Home-based Isolation and Care program. Total recoveries now stand at 249,296 of whom 201,149 are from the Home-Based Care and Isolation program, while 48,147 are from various health facilities countrywide,” Kagwe said.
As of December 17, 2021, a total of 8,818,453 vaccines had been administered across the country. The vaccine uptake included 5,264,630 partially vaccinated people 3,553,823 fully vaccinated recipients.
The Health CS pointed out that the uptake of the second dose among those who received their first dose was at 56.5 per cent while the proportion of adults fully vaccinated was reported 13 per cent.
The government was working towards vaccinating a targeted population of 27,246,033.
Nairobi County was listed among counties wit the highest proportion of vaccinated people with 31.5 per cent of the population fully vaccinated followed by Nyeri (27.5 per cent), Laikipia (21.2 per cent), Kiambu (20.5 per cent) and Murang’a (15.9 per cent)
Mandera County reported the lowest rate with 2.7 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.
The Ministry of Health reported the existence of 9 lineages of the new Omicron COVID-19 on Saturday with twenty-seven sequences of thirty-four samples tested matched to the variant.
Kagwe said the samples were picked between November 23 and December 7, 2021.
“Twenty-seven sequences (77 per cent) were confirmed to belong to the newly identified Omicron variant of concern. Two individuals with the Omicron variant had recently traveled from South Africa and Ghana and the rest had no recent international travel history,” Kagwe said Saturday.
Kenya confirmed the presence of the first-spreading but less fatal variant on December 15 when the Health Ministry reported three cases of the Omicron variant from three travelers from South Africa; two Kenyans, and a South African national.
