Covid-19 kills three more in Kenya as cases near 99,000

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe gives an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in Kenya during a press conference at Afya House in Nairobi on November 16, 2020. 

Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media group

Kenya on Friday recorded 166 new Covid-19 infections after testing 7,077 samples for the disease, raising its count since the first case last March to 98,859.

In a statement, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe also announced that three more patients had died, raising the toll to 1,726.

Twenty of the new patients were foreigners living in the country while the rest were Kenyans, CS Kagwe said, adding 100 were male and 66 female, the youngest one year old and the oldest 93.

Nairobi accounted for 115 of the new cases, Kaimbu 10, Kajiado seven, Mombasa six, Nakuru four, Busia, Machakos and Nyamira three each, Meru, Kisumu, Laikipia, Taita Taveta two each, and Embu, Garissa, Kakamega, Kilifi, Kitui, Makueni and Turkana one each.

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The CS further announced that 262 more patients had recovered, 254 of them at home and eight in hospital, raising the total to 82,195.

He said that by Friday, 683 patients had been admitted at various health facilities countywide while 1,726 were under home-based care.

Twenty nine patients were under intensive care (ICU), 14 of them on ventilatory support, 12 on supplemental oxygen and three under observation.

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The 7,077 samples tested in the last 24 hours raised the total number of tests carried out so far to 1,114,198.

The virus was first reported in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. 

Globally, more than 93,660,000 cases have been reported, including over two million deaths and over 66 million recoveries.