Health workers participate in a simulation to treat a large number of COVID-19 patients at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by: REUTERS / Baz Ratner

16 health workers in Kenya have lost their lives to the coronavirus since the country reported its first case in March.

The Health Ministry’s Chief Administrative Secretary Dr. Mercy Mwangangi on Thursday said the 16 are among more than 900 health workers who have tested positive for the virus.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 945 health care workers have been infected with the virus, whereas 16 of these have succumbed to the virus across 35 counties in the country,” Mwangangi said.

She added: “The MoH continues to value the role that our healthcare workers play in executing patient safety and particularly in these times of COVID-19, without their invaluable support of our frontline healthcare workers, we would not have managed to deal with the virus in the manner we have done so far.”

At the same time, Dr. Mwangangi reported 183 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the country’s tally of positive cases to 36,576.

As of Thursday, 82 more people had recovered from the disease bringing the total number of recoveries to 23,611.

The country also lost five more patients raising Kenya’s death toll to 642.