Covid-19 has killed 30 Kenyans abroad while 193 have tested positive
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo has said that 193 Kenyans living abroad have tested positive to Covid-19 while 30 have died of it so far.
Appearing before Parliament on Wednesday, Omamo said 88 Kenyans abroad are presently admitted in hospitals in different countries around the world, out of which four are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with 78 having recovered so far.
DEATHS ABROAD
According to the CS, the ministry has developed an emergency committee chaired by CAS Ababu Namwamba to monitor the situation surrounding Kenyans in the diaspora.
CS Omamo was speaking to the ad hoc committee on Covid-19 pandemic that is chaired by Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja during a virtual meeting to appraise the Senators on the ministry’s response to the coronavirus situation in Kenya.
“We have negotiated with ministries in different countries to help cater for Kenyans who were forced to extend their stay based on the information they are being given,” she said.
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.
GLOBAL DEATH TOLL
“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 737 on Wednesday, after 22 new cases were confirmed.
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 293,783, with 1.6 million people having recovered.