This archive report was first published on 18 December 2021.
Kenya has confirmed 27 cases of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant, with 77% of the sequences belonging to the variant of concern.
According to Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, the Ministry of Health identified 9 lineages circulating in Kenya from a sample size of 34.
Of the 27 cases, two individuals had recently travelled from South Africa and Ghana, while the rest had no recent international travel history.
"The increase in cases infected with the variant and have no recent travel history suggests ongoing community transmission of this variant," Kagwe said.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the new coronavirus variant is spreading across the globe at an unprecedented rate.
Kenya has also reported 2,169 new Covid-19 cases from a sample size of 9,428 tested in the last 24 hours, with a positivity rate of 23.0%.
Of the new cases, 2,041 are Kenyans, while 128 are foreigners. The youngest case is a two-month-old child, while the oldest is 95 years old.
As of December 17th, 2021, a total of 8,818,453 vaccines had been administered across the country, with 5,264,630 partially vaccinated and 3,553,823 fully vaccinated.
