Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has today said although the surging cases had overstretched health facilities particularly the Intensive Care Unit(ICU), the health system has not been overrun.
Briefing the media on the Covid-19 update today, Kagwe said that the national and county governments had stepped up efforts to increase ICU facilities to cope with the surge.
“ Health facilities are currently overstretched but not overrun as the number of ICU admissions has shot up from 27 patients in January to 121 as of yesterday March 21 more on ventilatory support. On Jan 22 we had 1553 patients, now we have 2545. We can easily get discouraged. I want to assure Kenyans that we are still striving to get adequate ICU and isolation beds,” he said.
He also sent a warning on the rising cases and the strained health care system since test positivity rate from the cases stand at 22 per cent and is the highest this year.
In the last 24 hours, 1,130 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the country from a sample size of 5,119, pushing the total of confirmed cases to 122,040.
The Ministry of Health has also announced 12 new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours pushing Kenya’s total coronavirus death toll to 2,023.
Kagwe appealed to health facilities to send reports of fatalities within 12 hours so that reports can be up-to-date.
On the ongoing vaccination, Kagwe admitted that vaccination against the disease does not guarantee full immunity until after three months.
He said it is possible for a person to contract the virus if exposed just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine does not provide protection immediately.
“It is true that one can get the virus immediately after vaccination if you are exposed to the virus…. Vaccination is not immediate protection, partial immunity comes after three weeks, while full protection after the second doss. It takes three months to have full immunity” he said.
He also warned facilities from administering vaccines to people who are not in the priority list for phase 1, saying all facilities will have to account for every dose that had been administered.
“We have to be fair and transparent, We must follow the priority list, should we receive information to the contrary ,we will take legal action and even take away licences. This is contrary to the law,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of health has vaccinated 40,000 frontline workers and projects that 50,000 will have received their jabs by today evening.