CORONAVIRUS: Kenya Records First Death In East Africa

March 26, 2020

Coronavirus on Thursday claimed its first victim in Kenya as the national tally of confirmed cases stood at 31.

The patient was a 66-year-old Kenyan male who had a long-term medical condition, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said.He died this afternoon at an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Agakhan Hospital where had been admitted.”The man who was suffering from diabetes arrived in the country on March 13, 2020, from South Africa via Swaziland,” Kagwe said in a statement.

The news, which CS Kagwe described as sad, comes barely hours after Kenya announced her first recovery  from the highly-contagious virus.The recovery was of a 27-year-old won who tested positive to the virus on March 13. Codenamed patient zero, for being the first recorded case in Kenya, her recovery gave the country a much-awaited hope against the pandemic.Earlier today,Kenya confirmed three more cases of the virus to add to yesterday’s tally of 28.

Health Chief Administrative Secretary Mercy Mwangangi said the latest cases were all female Kenyans and close contacts of previous reported cases.She said two of the cases were from Kilifi County while the other was from Nairobi.

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