152 more contract Covid-19 as Kenya's death toll reaches 1,859

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe at Serena Hotel in Nairobi on February 17, 2021 during the unveiling of the Kenya End Malaria Council.

Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group

The number of declared Covid-19 infections in Kenya on Monday rose by 152 to 106,125, Health minister Mutahi Kagwe announced in a statement, saying 2,213 samples had been tested within a day.

The Cabinet Secretary said the country had tested at least 1,301,051 samples for the disease by March 1, since reporting its first case on March 13, 2020.

All but eight of the new patients were Kenyans whereas 83 of them were male and 69 female, the youngest seven years old and the oldest 79.

A hundred and thirty of the new patients were found in Nairobi County, which remained in the lead in terms of the number of infections recorded daily per county.

Kiambu recorded 10 new Covid-19 cases, Machakos four, Kajiado and Nyeri two each, and Meru, Mombasa and Murang'a one each.

CS Kagwe announced that the number of recovered patients had risen by 39 to 86,717 and that 23 of them were in the home-based care programme while 16 had been hospitalised.

He also reported that three more patients had succumbed to the virus, raising the death toll in Kenya to 1,859.

By Monday, 1,527 patients had been registered under the home-based care programme while 357 had been hospitalised countrywide.

Of those admitted, 57 were in intensive care units (ICU), 25 of them on ventilatory support, 28 on supplemental oxygen and four under observation.

Another 15 patients were also on supplemental oxygen, all of them in general wards.