Africa-Press – Kenya. The Ministry of Health has called on Kenyans to exercise caution as the country battles a possible seventh wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of infections in the country has continued to rise in the past few weeks with the positivity rate going to as high as 15 per cent from 0.1 per cent since the end of the sixth wave in June.
The head of preventive and promotive health at the ministry Andrew Mulwa said there is no cause for alarm as no increase in hospitalisation and fatalities has been witnessed.
“We have not seen an increase in admissions or poor outcomes as a result of new cases and this is a testament to the fact that our vaccination programme against Covid is working,” Mulwa said on Tuesday.
“In the previous pandemic cycles whenever we have had a peak of infections we have seen more hospitalisations, more people requiring oxygen, more deaths, but we have not seen that and therefore we continue to encourage our unvaccinated people to do so.”
The positivity rate has been relatively low in the last few months with the data showing the percentage was at 0.9 at the beginning of October.
Mulwa has however said the testing rate is still low with the country conducting less than 1,000 tests per day as opposed to the expected 7,000 tests.
“We have seen a spike in the positivity rate of Covid-19 in the last three or so weeks and this has been sustained believing that we have a new wave of covid-19,” he said.
The World Health Organization recommends that the positivity rate be maintained at below five per cent for a consistent period of more than 14 days if a country wishes to relax its containment protocols.
For More News And Analysis About Kenya Follow Africa-Press
