NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 22- The number of COVID-19 fatalities in Kenya rose to 3,484 Tuesday after 23 patients succumbed to the disease.
The Ministry of Health said all the 23 deaths were late filings from facility audits for last month.
The Ministry also reported an 8.7 percent COVID positivity rate, after 583 people tested positive to the disease raising the total number of confirmed cases to 179,876.
The total number of those who have recovered stands at 123,050 after 85 patients recovered from the disease.
A statement from Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said a total of 1,098 patients were admitted to various health facilities while 5,669 patients were under home-based care program.
Kenya has received 360,000 doses of COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine from Denmark, signalling a major boost in the inoculation exercise that started in February.
The vaccines which were given as a donation were received on Monday night by Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
1,190,889 Kenyans have so far been vaccinated, 996,414 having received the first dose while 194,475 received the second dose.
With the new batch of vaccines, Mochache asked Kenyans who have already received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to visit various health centres across the country from Wednesday to get their second jab.
“From Wednesday when I am sure the vaccine will have reached most facilities in Kenya we would wish that people should get out and go for their second dose. This vaccine donation that we have received has got a life of about one month and so up to to the end of July the vaccines will be in good condition and can therefore be administered,” she said.
Mochache said that the vaccines could not have come at a better time revealing that Kenya’s COVID-19 stock had only 5, 000 vaccines remaining.
Kenya kicked off its inoculation exercise in March with 1.02 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that was acquired through the covax facility.
