Prof Matilu Mwau, an infectious diseases expert at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) in charge of testing said the manual testing kits that arrived earlier took long to distribute because of documentation issues, which have since been sorted. Giving an update on Covid-19 Wednesday, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said reduction in the number of samples tested was attributable to a shortage of kits. The highest the country has ever tested was 9,000 samples, but it changes depending on the availability of testing materials. Currently, there are around 30,000 manual kits and about 80,000 abort kits for the automated machines that can last the country two months. Kenya Wednesday recorded an additional 544 new positive cases from 5,259 samples tested, bringing the total case-load to 19,125 from a cumulative 289,759 samples tested so far.

Source: Daily Nation July 30, 2020 05:00 UTC