• On Tuesday, the CS ruled out the possibility of counties evacuating Covid patients to Nairobi, saying the capacity in the city might be overwhelmed by then.
• Counties were directed by President Uhuru Kenyatta to set up a minimum of 300-bed capacity isolation facilities in preparedness for a surge in cases.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
The government will expand the hospital bed capacity in Nairobi by another 1,000 beds in the next 30 days to cater for Covid-19 cases.
The Health ministry predicts a surge in the number of Covid-19 positive cases after President Uhuru Kenyatta lifted some restrictions.
The President lifted movement restrictions in Mombasa, Nairobi and Mandera Monday and reopened places of worship with strict guidelines.
The Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital is one of the facilities expected to provide an additional 500 beds. It currently has 300.
The Health CS Mutahi Kagwe on Wednesday said the 1,000 beds may not be sufficient based on the case projections.
Kagwe said the ministry will work with counties to ensure they upscale preparedness to deal with the pandemic.
On Tuesday, he said counties will not evacuate patients to Nairobi.
Counties were directed by President Uhuru Kenyatta to set up a minimum of 300 beds each for isolation of Covid-19 cases.
“There are some counties that are still struggling to get the level of 300-bed capacity minimum. The up scaling of this capacity has got other benefits as well,” Kagwe said.
He, however, noted that in addition to physical infrastructure, counties should train medics and enforce containment guidelines.
“County governments must be prepared. That is why we are training people at the county level so that there is capability within the county to take care of as many cases as we can get,” he said.
As of Wednesday, 26 counties had met the requirement, according to the Council of Governors’ report.
The report indicated that the counties have 6,898 isolation beds against the requirement of 30,500.
“The fortunate bet is that most of the cases in our country are asymptomatic so they are not exactly sick. They are people who can move on with life but they can pass the virus. Therefore, there will be need to be isolated.”
Some of the counties that attained the capacity include Mombasa with 432 beds, Machakos with 373, Kiambu (325), Uasin Gishu(324), Makueni (312), Murang’a (305), Vihiga and Homa Bay with (300 each), Nyeri (340), Kisii (318) and Kilifi (308).
CoG chairperson Wycliffe Oparanya on Wednesday said the remaining 21 counties will meet the capacity by July 22.
The CS has challenged the counties to take advantage of existing institutions to set up the isolation centres.
So far, 42 counties out of the 47 have recorded a case
Data from Wednesday’s briefing show that the number of positive cases in the country is 8,528 after 278 more were confirmed in 24 hours.
The new cases were from 3,053 samples tested in a day. The total number of tests conducted since the first case is now 196,508.
The new cases comprised 266 Kenyans and 12 foreign nationals aged between four and 72 years; out of whom 194 are men and 84 women.
Nairobi had the highest number of positive cases with 131, followed by Kiambu with 32, Busia 29, Migori 23, Machakos 20, Kajiado 13, Taita Taveta eight, Vihiga seven, Mombasa five, Nakuru four, Isiolo and Makueni two cases each while Meru and Kisii recorded one case each.
Some 89 people were discharged from hospital. The number of patients who have been treatment and recovered is 2,593.
Two more patients died, raising fatalities in the country to 169.
Edited by R.Wamochie