Kenya's ministry of health on Tuesday reported 521 news COVID-19 infections from 4,721 samples tested in the last 24 hours, taking the country's total number of cases to 89,100.

The figures were announced by Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Mercy Mwangangi at a press briefing in Nairobi, where she also noted that 14 more patients had succumbed to the disease, raising Kenya's death toll to 1,545.

"In terms of the cases that we have reported today, 504 of these are Kenyans while 17 are foreigners," said Mwangangi. "In terms of gender, we have 315 that are male and 206 that are female."

The CAS noted that the disease had affected lives of many Kenyans since the first case was reported on 13 March.

She however expressed satisfaction that many Kenyans who had contracted the virus were able to seek medical attention in good time, a reason for the high number of recoveries.

In the past 24 hours, 425 patients were discharged from various facilities after recovering from the disease, taking Kenya’s total number of recoveries to 69,839.

"We believe part of these good health seeking behavior by Kenyans is why we have been able to register many recoveries in the country," said Mwangangi.

Kenya's number of COVID-19 infections is the sixth-highest in Africa, only shadowed by figures recorded by South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia and Tunisia.