COVID-19: Kenya confirms 8 new deaths, 137 cases

ANKARA (AA) - Health authorities in Kenya on Tuesday confirmed eight more deaths related to COVID-19 and new 137 infections, local media reported.

The latest figures raised the nationwide coronavirus death toll to 743 and infections to 39,586, local daily The Star said.

The Tuesday’s update came after 1,258 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.

A one-year-old is the youngest among the new infections while the oldest is an 81-year-old.

The capital Nairobi continues to be be the worst hit in the country, recording 64 cases in the last 24 hours. Some 35 out of them are from prisoners from Nairobi Remand Prison, The Star reported.

The Turkana county, meanwhile, came second in terms of COVID-19 case count with 34 new infections. Out of total, 33 were from Kakuma Refugee Camp.

Kenya remains among the top ten countries affected by COVID-19 in the African Region, albeit with an overall declining trend in new cases and deaths, the WHO Africa office said in its weekly bulletin on outbreaks and other emergencies on Tuesday.

However, challenges remain around the response, with decreasing attention paid to public health measures by members of the public, inadequate surveillance resources, leading to demotivated responders and issues around access to laboratory commodities and personal protective equipment. All these need to be addressed urgently in order to maintain the momentum of the declining trend in the outbreak, it added.

Kenya needs to strengthen surveillance, particularly at sub-national level and improve risk communication around adherence to public health measures and quarantine regulations in order to maintain the declining trend in new COVID-19 cases, it urged.

Since first reported in China last December, the coronavirus has infected over 35.55 million people and killed over 1 million across the world.