The country will know whether it is out of the woods in terms of Coronavirus situation in the next one to two weeks, Health Acting Director General (DG) Dr. Patrick Amoth has said.
He said while the country was making good progress in flattening the curve, it need not drop the ball.
Speaking at the Thika Level Five Hospital while launching the behaviour change communication strategy Thursday, the DG said the country is past the inflation point and on a downward trajectory in its Covid-19 situation.
This comes as the country continued to report reduced Covid-19 numbers, recording 141 cases out of 3,307 cases. The country’s total number of Covid-19 stands at 37,489.
“We are heading in the right direction since today’s positivity rate is 4. 3 percent and in the past three weeks, we have maintained a rate less than 5 percent,” he said.
Dr. Amoth at the same time said the Covid-19 containment measures saved the country 4,400 deaths, which translated to 84 percent of the deaths that were projected by the Ministry of Health in April.
He said were it not for the MOH protocols and containment, the country would be grappling with over the top Covid-19 cases and deaths.
The projections put the country’s fatalities at 5,000 people by the end of the year. Already, about 700 people have lost their lives to the disease.
The DG said the country’s mortality rate of 1.7-1.8 percent was way below the global average about 3.1 percent, attributing it to adherence to containment measures by a majority of Kenyans.
“What the scientists projected in the early months of Covid-19 has come to pass and were it not for the measures that were undertaken to control, the story would be different,” he noted.
He added that 16 health workers have since died of Covid-19, out of 954 of those who have been infected by the disease.
He was accompanied by Health CAS Dr. Mercy Mwangangi, officials from the Health Ministry and Kiambu Governor James Nyoro.
Dr. Mwangangi took issue with the high rate at which Kenyans have started ignoring the MoH protocols in the past few weeks.
She said the disease was still in our midst thus the need to work with the community to ensure behaviour change in preventing the spread of the virus.
Nyoro said the county was well prepared to handle the disease, saying they targeted to achieve 800 isolation beds by the end of October.
By Muoki Charles
