Kenya says COVID-19 tests to focus on hotspots
By People Daily, August 19, 2020Kenya’s Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday it is shifting COVID-19 testing to hotspots and groups considered at higher risk of contracting the disease.
Rashid Aman, chief administrative secretary in the Ministry of Health, said that the targeted testing was informed by widespread community transmission in the country.
“The infection trend has become erratic leading to the disease presence in all parts of the country,” Aman said at a daily briefing in Nairobi.
He said that testing of public sector employees was ongoing to help identify new infection clusters.
Aman said that coronavirus transmission dynamics were changing rapidly as previous hotspots record minimal cases and new clusters emerge in rural counties.
He said that COVID-19 infections in refugee camps and prisons were largely contained following intensified surveillance.
Aman said the total number of COVID-19 positive cases rose to 30,636 on Tuesday after 271 people tested positive in the last 24 hours. The new infections are from 4,019 samples.
He said the new infections include 178 males and 93 females, while 267 were Kenyan nationals and four were foreign citizens.
Aman said some 208 patients recovered from COVID-19 between Monday and Tuesday, with 161 recovering from home-based care programs and 42 from health facilities, bringing the total number of recoveries to 17,368.
He said that five patients had succumbed to COVID-19 disease, bringing the national fatality to 487.
Kenya has so far tested 398,585 samples since COVID-19 was reported in the country in mid-March. (Xinhua)