Kenya announced its first confirmed case of coronavirus on Friday, saying a woman who returned from the United States tested positive for the illness in Nairobi.

A Kenyan health worker demonstartes how to put on a protective mask during a demonstration for the preparations for any potential cases of the new coronavirus dubbed COVID-19, at the Mbgathi District hospital in Nairobi on March 6, 2020. (Photo: AFP)

"I want to inform you that the Ministry of Health has confirmed the first coronavirus case in Kenya," Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told reporters.

"The case is a Kenyan citizen who travelled back to Nairobi, returning from the United States of America via London, United Kingdom, on March 5, 2020."

The woman's temperature had returned to normal and she was stable and recovering in isolation, he said.

It is the first confirmed case of the new coronavirus in the East African region.