Ministry of Health has announced that it will quarantine all passengers coming to the country from Botswana,South Africa and Hong Kong following reports of a new variant that has been reported in these countries.
The new strain that has been christened B.1.1.529 carries 32 mutations which make it highly transmissible from one person to the other with increased immune evasion from the vaccine.
In a statement issued on Friday by the ministry of health Director General Dr.Patrick Amoth said that measures have been put in place to secure the country against the new variant. He faulted the countries experiencing the new strain “has not put in necessary measures to combat the spread”.
According to Prof Tulio de Oliveira, Director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform at South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, indicated that the new variant has rapidly increased in Gauteng province, a predominantly urban area containing the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and may be present in other provinces.
This is not the only variant to be reported, a few months ago Delta variant was reported and it disappeared.
All travelers coming to Kenya have been urged to travel with the COVID negative certificate.
Health care workers have been urged to prepare adequately in case there is an increase in the number of COVID 19 cases due to the new variant which is highly transmissible.
Kenyan’s have also been urged to take advantage of the available vaccines in the country and vaccinated.
According to the Ministry of Health as of November 27th 2021, a total of 6,939,559 vaccines had so far been administered across the country. Of these, 4,282,386 were partially vaccinated while those fully vaccinated were 2,657,173.