Confirmed coronavirus cases in Kenya have risen by 12, bringing the number of positive cases in the country to 246 by this morning.

Five of the 12 are hotel workers while four are from contact tracing, the cabinet secretary for health, Mutahi Kagwe, said at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport as he accompanied cabinet secretaries Fred Matiang’i and James Macharia to receive a consignment of medical supplies from China that was flown to the country by a Kenya Airways flight.

"As we stand right now, at this hour, we have already tested about 450 samples out of this, we have already got 12 positive cases and we have not finished the day. What this tells you is that we need to really start the testing capacity so that the contacts of those people who are positive can also be tested and therefore we can contain the pandemic," said Mr Kagwe.

The number of people tested for the virus now stands at 10,784 following this latest update from Mr Kagwe.

Meanwhile, the Kenya Airways flight from China brought 500,000 three-ply masks, 200,000 testing and sampling tubes which are key to Kenya's ability to mass-test the public, 4,000 shoe covers for use by frontline health workers, 300 static shoes used in theatres, 76,000 N95 masks and face visors.