186 health care Workers positive for COVID-19 in Kenya » Capital News

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 1- 186 healthcare workers have so far tested positive for coronavirus since the first case was reported in mid-March.

Director-General of Public Health Dr Patrick Amoth said the government is however, committed to protect the medics from the virus, by providing them with the required kits.

“I am glad to report that we have not lost any health care worker to COVID-19 and the latest positive cases that we have were reported in Shalom Hospital in Athi River but even those ones are doing well under care,” Amoth said.

He however, admitted that the healthcare workers were facing a challenge of having to handle many patients due to lack of enough doctors as recruitment is still ongoing

“To be able to address this as part of preparedness, we are trying to recruit extra staff and not only because of COVID-19 but even post coronavirus pandemic. Work is in progress in terms of the recruitment of the initial 5,000 health care workers.

He spoke on Wednesday, during the Ministry of Health’s daily media briefing where Chief Administrative Secretary y Rashid Aman announced 307 new positive cases of COVID-19, the highest on a single day since March when the pandemic broke out in the country.

“Our numbers have started to increase and today we have 307 positive cases raising the total caseload to 6,673,” he said.

The new cases were detected from 3,591 samples tested since Tuesday.

“I urge all Kenyans to play their part in helping bring the curve down,” he pleaded, announcing that 50 patients had been discharged after recovering.

Kenya has so far discharged 2,089 patients.

“Sadly, we lost one patient,” he said, raising fatalities so far to 149.

154 of the new positive cases were detected in Nairobi followed by Mombasa which had 38 cases. Kiambu recorded 20 cases.