A study carried out by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in collaboration with Washington State University in the United States and the University of Nairobi has found that more than one in three people in Nairobi have already been infected with Covid-19.
This was revealed by the national newspaper Daily Nation, reporting data from serological tests carried out in the country's capital over the past nine months. According to the blood tests, antibodies to the virus are already present in 35% of those tested.
The number comes from a fairly reliable sample, that of 1,164 people of all ages from 527 families distributed in the 17 Sub.Counties of Nairobi.
The surveys also showed that half of the Nairobi households in question had at least one person who had been infected with the virus.
The antibody analysis that took place over the past eight months also established that only three out of every 10,000 people infected with the coronavirus in Nairobi died. This is very low compared to all Western countries, and infinitely lower than the 100 deaths per 10,000 Covid infections reported in the UK.
The figures do not differ from what Italian doctor Mauro Saio told malindikenya.net, according to which the virus had already started to spread before the lockdown in Kenya and that the country had already moved naturally towards herd immunity.
According to Dr Eric Osoro, epidemiologist at WSU Global Health-Kenya, whose words were reported by the Daily Nation, infections have remarkable numbers, but on the other hand most Kenyans do not get sick enough to need hospitalisation because they are not severely affected by the virus.
"This finding indicates that Kenya's mortality may be lower than in developed countries and, as in other countries, current control systems detect only 2.4% of total infections."
The study also revealed that people aged between 20 and 49 were 2.5 times more likely to have been infected with Covid-19 than children under 10 and those over 60.
According to the study, in the Mathare slum, for example, one out of every two residents has already been infected with Covid-19. In general, the results show a greater presence of antibodies in the more densely populated areas of the city.