Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe. Photo Ministry of Health, Kenya

The Ministry of Health on Sunday announced that 324 more people in Kenya had tested positive for Covid-19, following the analysis of 4,392 samples in the last 24 hours.

This placed the country's positivity rate at 7.4 percent and the number of confirmed infections at 168,432.

Of the new patients, 298 were Kenyans and 26 foreigners, 223 male and 101 female, the youngest one year old and the oldest 91 years.

Kiambu County accounted for 84 of the new cases and was followed by Nairobi with 68, Homa Bay 28, Mombasa 27, Kisii 19, Nyeri 17, Kilifi 13, Isiolo and Meru seven each, and Kisumu and Uasin Gishu six each.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, in a statement to newsrooms, further reported 10 more deaths, raising the toll to 3,059.

Two of the deaths occurred in the last 24 hours while eight were confirmed after the audit of facility records over the last one month.

CS Kagwe also announced that 85 more people recovered from the disease, 53 of them under home-based isolation and care and 32 in hospital.

The total number of recoveries rose to 114,537, he said, adding that as of Sunday, 1,084 patients had been hospitalised at facilities countrywide while 4,751 were being treated at home.

Of those in hospital, 121 were in intensive care units (ICU), 25 of whom are on ventilator support, 68 on supplemental oxygen and 28 patients under observation. - CGTN (With input from Ministry of Health Kenya)

A health worker is seen as people wait to receive coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine as part of the vaccination campaign for health workers and people over 65 years old at Muyumba Health Center in Kigali, Rwanda on March 05, 2021. Photo Habimana Thierry/Anadolu Agency

Rwanda halted coronavirus vaccination because of delays in deliveries that has created a vaccine shortage here, an official said Tuesday. 

Director-General of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre Sabin Nsanzimana said the number vaccinated in Rwanda is still low.

Rwanda wants to vaccinate 30% of the population by the end of 2021 and 60% by the end of 2022.

About 350,400 people have received jabs as of Tuesday, representing just 5% of the population.

Nsanzimana said 500,000 doses of the vaccine Rwanda procured from India have yet to arrive, following a health crisis that affected vaccine supplies to developing countries.

He assured the country that efforts were underway to procure vaccines from elsewhere that could be delivered soon.

The Health Ministry announced a testing drive in the capital, Kigali, on Monday, targeting passengers of public buses, private cars and motorcycle drivers hoping to collect 2,000 samples in three days.

It is intended to provide a better understanding of the pandemic’s prevalence in identified areas and groups, according to the ministry.

The East African country recorded 26,344 COVID-19 cases, 24,808 recoveries and 346 deaths as of Tuesday.

The government launched nationwide vaccinations for at-risk groups who were identified as a priority in early March -- health personnel, frontline workers and those older than 65 or with underlying health conditions.

It later extended eligibility, including those older than 60, security personnel, market vendors and public transport drivers.

Rwanda received its first shipment of 240,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine and 102,960 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in March from the COVAX facility -- a worldwide program intended to allow equitable access to coronavirus vaccines directed by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization. - James Tasamba, Anadolu Agency

Image via Radio Tamazuj

The coronavirus strain circulating in India has been detected in three African countries, according to the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bloomberg reported that authorities in Kenya, Uganda, and Morocco have announced the presence of the variant known as B.1.617. 

John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in an online briefing Thursday that five cases have been found in Kenya and one in Uganda, while the Moroccan government is “investigating some cases there.”

Fearing an influx of infections and mindful of how transmissible the variant is, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania are among countries that have temporarily banned flights from India. Covid-19 strains first detected in the U.K. and South Africa have been reported in 20 and 23 African nations respectively, according to Nkengasong.

African countries have administered 20.2 million of the 37.6 million vaccine doses they have received, covering 1.1% of the population of more than 1.3 billion, he said. - Radio Tamazuj