This archive report was first published on 8 August 2020.
On August 8, 2020, the Cabinet Secretary for Health announced 699 new COVID-19 cases in Kenya, bringing the country's total cases to 25,837.
The Health CS made the announcement while inspecting the County's preparedness to combat the virus in Kakamega.
Out of the 699 new cases, 675 were Kenyans, while 24 were foreign nationals.
The new cases were detected from 7,175 samples that the Health Ministry took for testing.
According to the Health CS, the youngest person to contract the virus was a one-year-old, while the oldest was 85 years old.
Meanwhile, 781 patients were discharged after fully recovering from COVID-19, raising the total number of recoveries to 11,899.
Of the recoveries, 125 were from health facilities, while 656 were from the Ministry's home-based care program.
Unfortunately, the country has lost five patients to the disease, bringing the total number of casualties to 418.
CS Kagwe noted that no casualties have been reported from the home-based care program since its launch over a month ago.
"We have not lost a single person in the home-based care program. The facilities at home and atmosphere may work better for people rather than in hospitals," he said.
Kakamega Governor Oparanya appealed to the Health CS to make Kakamega a testing centre, citing the County's lack of an approved testing laboratory.
