Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe on Monday, July 13, delivered the daily press briefing on the Covid-19 pandemic at Afya House, Nairobi.
189 new cases were confirmed bringing total cases to 10,294. 12 more Kenyans succumbed to the disease raising the death toll to 197.
Kagwe noted that the new cases were discovered from 1,205 samples tested in the last 24 hours. He explained that a server issue had led to the decreased testing capacity.
He noted that 65 Covid-19 patients had also been discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours.
One of the highest daily fatality rates from Covid-19 so far was also recorded as 12 more patients succumbed to the virus.
Kagwe also announced the rolling out of a new web-based application for contact tracing and surveillance linked to medical records.
He noted that the application was developed in collaboration with development partners, stating that it would provide for easier tracing. The CS explained that they were previously forced to rely on phone calls to trace contacts.
Kagwe disclosed that 219 surveillance teams had been deployed to the counties and were engaged in contact tracing.
He further dismissed the assertion that some health facilities in Nairobi County were suffering a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs).
"We have got more PPEs at the moment than we need. So it's a question of individual hospitals and individual units ensuring that they have got them.
"We have not received any information from the management of hospitals in Nairobi that they don't have PPEs. There's no issue because we've got more than enough PPEs," he maintained.
Kagwe also witnessed the hand-over of vehicles to support the contact-tracing program, with more vehicles to be availed in coming weeks.
He flagged off vehicles to be deployed to 13 counties, while promising that the rest of the counties would soon be provided with vehicles as well.
Watch part of Kagwe's speech below:
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