NAIROBI — Kenya’s health ministry says 22 close contacts of the country’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 have been placed in quarantine at a special isolation ward in the capital Nairobi.
The news was announced Saturday, just one day after Kenya revealed that a 27-year-old woman who traveled to Nairobi from the US via London had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
That patient is being held at the capital’s Kenyatta National Hospital, where doctors say she is “stable, cheerful and vibrant with normal vital signs.” Health officials say she will not be released from the hospital’s Infectious Disease Unit until she consistently tests negative for the virus.
The people identified as her close contacts however are being held in an isolation ward at Mbagathi National Hospital on the capital’s south side. Health officials say samples have been collected from this group and are being tested in laboratories at the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
