Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on Tuesday after a Kenyan citizen who had travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo died in Nairobi, making it the fourth country to record an infection linked to the epidemic in the DRC, reports Reuters.
So far more than 8 000 cases have been reported. Uganda reported 20 cases and two deaths earlier in the year but was declared Ebola-free in August. A doctor who returned to France in June from Congo tested positive but there was no further spread of the virus.
The Kenyan patient, who had lived in the DRC for seven years, had been ill for about a month before travelling by road from the Congo to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and then flying to Nairobi on Saturday, Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale said.
After arriving at Nairobi’s international airport, he passed through health screening and was later taken by a relative to Nairobi Hospital. He was admitted with fever, chills and bleeding beneath the skin and was quickly placed in isolation, Duale said.
He died late on Monday.
Eight of his relatives and 21 healthcare workers who attended to him have been quarantined and are being monitored, and the patient was buried under protocols designed to prevent further spread of the virus.
Health authorities are now trying to trace 23 passengers and four crew members who were on his flight.
The health minister said Kenya had trained nearly 5 000 health workers on prevention and management and the UN’s senior Ebola co-ordinator, Julien Harneis, told Reuters he expected a “solid health response” from Kenya to manage the disease.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said it was immediately sending a high-level team to Kenya to provide support, adding that the case “underscores the importance of sustained preparedness across the region”.
The incident has raised questions about measures meant to prevent the spread of the virus across borders.
Kenya’s health ministry director-general, Patrick Amoth, said the patient may have passed through airport screening because medication had masked his symptoms.
Uganda’s health ministry said screening teams observed he had a normal temperature at Entebbe airport.
It was also not clear how he had crossed from the Congo into Uganda, given that the border has been closed since May. The Africa CDC said he spent a night in Uganda before boarding the flight to Kenya.
Asked about this, Ugandan government spokesperson Alan Kasujja said in a text message: “Leave Uganda out of this conversation … We don’t have Ebola here.”
US Ebola quarantine facility in Kenya standing empty
After the outbreak was declared in Congo, the United States built a 50-bed Ebola quarantine camp for US citizens on an air force base in central Kenya.
The facility is currently empty and has only housed seven people. Kenyan officials have said it could receive Kenyans and other nationalities, but the US government has not confirmed that.
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