Nairobi News

General

23 Kenyans in diaspora have died of Covid-19, 191 infected


The government has announced that 23 Kenyans living in the diaspora have so died and 191 have since tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Out of the 191 Kenyans who contracted Covid-19 in foreign countries, 77 have recovered from the disease while 23 have lost their lives, according to Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.

DEATH TOLL

86 other Kenyans are presently admitted in hospitals in different countries around the world, out of which four are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Ten of the 23 deaths were reported in the United States, six in the United Kingdom, two in Italy and one each in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, South Africa and France.

Last month, the government urged families whose kin die abroad to bury or cremate them there but those insisting on bringing their bodies back to Kenya must do so at their own cost.

“Families willing to bring home the bodies of their relatives will have to bear the costs or allow them to be cremated in a foreign land,” said Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Ambassador Macharia Kamau.

The number of Covid-19 infections in Kenya rose to 672 on Sunday, after 23 new cases were confirmed.

RECOVERIES

The 23 include 22 Kenyans and one Burundian national.

At the same time, 32 Covid-19 patients were discharged from various facilities, making it the highest number of recoveries registered in the country in a single day.

This raised the total number of recoveries to 239 while the death toll increased by two to 32. The two patients died in Mombasa.

More than four million confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported around the world, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University.

The global death toll has also risen to above 277,000, with 1.3 million people having recovered.