Kenya’s Ministry of Health on Saturday reported 847 new COVID-19 cases that were detected from a sample size of 6,080 , raising the total caseload in the country to 196,745.
Kenya records 847 new COVID-19 cases
COVID-19 update
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This reflects a positivity rate of 13.9 percent.
Through a press statement, the Ministry revealed 11 patients had succumbed to the disease with one of them having occurred in the last 24 hours, while 10 were late deaths reports from audits in the month of July pushing fatalities to 3,849.
155 patients were discharged after recovering from the virus raising the total recoveries to 185,762.
By July 24, 1,670,941 people had been vaccinated, among them 624,415 who have received their second jab.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has assured that by December 2021, 10 million adults will have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
He said the government had ordered had 13 million doses of the single-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine; set to arrive in August 2021.
The slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccination could slow Kenya’s economic recovery until 2024, a new report said.
The report says Covid-19 vaccine inequity will have a lasting impact on socio-economic recovery in low- and lower-middle income countries.
Faster scaling up manufacturing and sharing enough vaccine doses with low-income countries could have added $38 billion (Sh4.112 trillion) to GDP forecast for 2021, if they had similar vaccination rates as high-income countries.
Only two in every 100 Kenyans have been vaccinated.
It says a high price per Covid-19 vaccine dose relative to other vaccines and delivery costs – including for the health workforce surge – could put a huge strain on fragile health systems.
The report further revealed, it would also undermine routine immunisation and essential health services and could cause alarming spikes in measles, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
There is also a clear risk of foregone opportunities to expand other immunisation services, such as HPV vaccines.
Lower income countries need timely access to sustainably priced vaccines and timely financial support.
These insights come from the Global Dashboard for Covid-19 Vaccine Equity, a joint initiative of UNDP, WHO and the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
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