A new study by Amref Health Africa says between 800,000 and 2 million Kenyans could die from the naval coronavirus should the country get into a full-blown epidemic.
The study, released on Friday says most of the victims will be those aged above 65 as well as individuals suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, respiratory disorders, cancer and HIV/Aids.
Studies already done elsewhere show the virus posses the biggest threat to aged individuals with underlying health conditions as well as its effect on different sexes.
Key to these statistics are the estimated number of Kenyans living with underlying health conditions such as heart ailments, hypertension, diabetes, HIV/Aids as well as malnutrition. These might combine with devastating effect to push the death rates to the millions should the disease get to a full-blown crisis such as is currently being experienced in Italy, Europe, the UK as well as the US.
And Kenya just like the rest of the developing world has a large part of the population already with underlying chronic illnesses, like heart ailments, hypertension and diabetes, that can make the fatality rate of the Covid-19 even worse.