Evidencing Effectiveness in Covid-19 Response – The Kenyan Case
Background and Introduction
Kenya’s first COVID 19 Case was confirmed on 12th March 2020. The case was an imported case from Abroad. Currently Kenya has 38,529 positive cases of COVID19 with 711 deaths reported and 24,908 patients having successfully recovered from the treatment. 98 per cent of the total case load in the country is locally transmitted. The country has carried out cumulative tests of 547 946 so far. The tested number is quite small considering a total population of 50 million. There are also very limited testing carried out in the rural area prompting the fear that the numbers of those infected by the disease of dead from it could be higher than officially captured. There also views that many more could have recovered from the disease that currently reported. Simply put, the statistics put out by the government may not necessarily be accurate given the challenges highlighted.
What is key to note is that the numbers continue to surge albeit slowing down in intensity. This has prompted the government to declare that the curve of COVID 19 is flattening and as a result have started easing the restrictions on social, political and economic activities in the country.
Kenya has been identified as a Level 1 country for the COVID19 disease by the US Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the country as a top priority country, alongside others such as Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia ,Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa. Together these countries contribute over 50 percent of the total infection rates in Africa.