The rate of positive swabs continues to rise in Kenya and the Ministry of Health Mutahi Kagwe has convened a meeting of the health task force experts to decide within the next two days on what to do to contain this rise due to the spread of the so-called 'delta variant'.
Kagwe, according to his press conference on Wednesday 28 July, is concerned about the speed and danger with which the Delta variant is spreading in the country, although he pointed out that the mortality rate, fortunately, compared to many other countries where it is present, is still reasonably low.
Kenyans and especially the tourism sector hope that these words mean that there will be an important reflection on the adoption of further restrictive measures that, according to rumours in the media these days, could lead to an extension of curfew hours in the counties most at risk, which are currently Nairobi, Kilifi, Mombasa. Kiambu and Uasin Gishu.
However, the Minister noted that the containment measures imposed in the 13 counties have been effective as there has been a significant drop in the number of people having to resort to oxygen intake, but also in those admitted to isolation centres and high dependency units. To date, 174 patients in serious condition are being treated in Kenyan intensive care units.
The two-month lockdown of the 13 counties in western Kenya will end in two days' time and will not be extended, according to yesterday's meeting. There is not the same certainty that a new one will not be applied in the coastal counties. But to close at 7am instead of 10am would be a very big blow to tourism businesses that are expecting thousands of guests in August, from Nairobi, other mainland nations and internationals.
"Our experts are still meeting," Kagwe explained, "they are still discussing and advising us on what should happen in the next couple of days in terms of extension or whatever. At the moment, Nairobi is the county that we are concerned about because of the increase in positivity rates and I think it is important that the people of Nairobi know that they are most at risk in terms of the current spread of the virus."
According to the World Health Organisation, the third wave will culminate in a fourth that will push the peak even higher than the current 18%, an increase of 4 percentage points over the previous 24 hours. The issue is that a wave is usually considered to be declining when after the supposed 'peak' it starts to fall and reaches below the 5% threshold for a fortnight. This was the case in Kenya last spring after its second wave, but now, due to the very slow vaccination process, it does not seem to be the time of the decline yet. For two or three days the percentage fell below 10% but then started to rise again and put Kenya, like other African countries for which it seemed the worst was over (Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania) in antithesis with countries around the world where the majority of citizens are being vaccinated quickly.
Kenya has not yet reached 2.5% of the vaccinated who are almost all health workers or government employees.
During his visit to Britain, which began on Tuesday 27 July and has not yet ended, among other things, President Uhuru Kenyatta received a promise of an imminent shipment from London of another 870,000 vaccines, but to begin mass vaccinations there is a need for the Johnson & Johnson vaccines promised by the United States that were announced through the Covax programme for early August. There should be as many as 12 million of them, but for days confirmation has been awaited, but it has not been forthcoming.
Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours Kenya has registered 1006 new infections out of 5,584 swabs, bringing the total number of cases to 199,941 and the percentage to 18%. The death toll from the virus in the country has risen to 3,895 after another 13 patients died from the disease. Not all of them in the last 24 hours, in fact. Some are part of late registrations at the Ministry of Health.
Kagwe confirmed that there are 1,386 patients currently admitted to various hospitals in the country. Another 3,686 less seriously ill patients are in the home care programme.
Of the 174 patients in intensive care, 41 are on ventilator support.
Oxygen is administered to another 433 patients, of whom 387 are in general wards and 46 in high dependency units (HDUs). There were only 261 recoveries on Wednesday 28 July.