Kenya’s COVID-19 positivity rate rises to 13.9pc 847 new cases recorded » Capital News

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 24- Kenya’s COVID-19 positivity rate rose to 13.9 percent from 11.4 percent that was registered on Friday after 847 people tested positive from a sample size of 6,080.

The latest figures released by Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe on Saturday raised the total caseload to 196,745.

Kagwe said 1,277 patients were admitted to various hospitals across the country, among them 167 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Kagwe said 11 patients had succumbed to the disease with one of the deaths having occurred in the last 24 hours, while 10 were late deaths report from record audits in the month of July pushing fatalities to 3,849.  

722 patients were discharged after recovering from the virus bringing total recoveries to 185,762

By Saturday, 1,670,941 people had been vaccinated; among them 624,415 who had 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.

On Wednesday COVID-19 vaccine makers BioNTech and Pfizer said it had found a South African partner to produce their jab on the African continent for the first time, the AFP reported.

The move came amid growing criticism on vaccine inequality that had seen poor countries fall behind richer ones in the race to protect people from the coronavirus.

Under the agreement, Cape Town-based Biovac will complete the last step in the manufacturing process of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, known as “fill and finish”, the companies said in a statement.

The project will take time to get off the ground however, with the first African-finished Pfizer vaccines not expected before 2022.

Once up and running, Biovac is set to churn out more than 100 million doses annually that will be distributed to the 55 countries in the African Union.