NAIROBI, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on Tuesday after a Kenyan citizen who had travelled from Democratic Republic of Congo died in Nairobi.
Kenya is the fourth country to record a case linked to the Ebola epidemic in eastern Congo, the second largest on record with more than 8,000 cases.
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 Congo for seven years, had been ill for about a month before travelling by road from Congo to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and then flying to Nairobi on Saturday, Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale told a news conference.
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 family members and 21 healthcare workers who attended to him have been quarantined and are being monitored, Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said.
PATIENT BURIED UNDER HEALTH PROTOCOLS
The patient was buried under protocols designed to prevent further spread of the virus, Ruto’s office said.
Health authorities are trying to trace 23 passengers and four crew members who were on his Jambojet flight, Duale said.
The health minister said Kenya had trained nearly 5,000 health workers across the country on prevention and management and the UN’s senior Ebola coordinator, 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 in a statement that 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”.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that the WHO was supporting the Kenyan and Ugandan governments and recommended against any travel restrictions on countries affected by the outbreak.
Nevertheless, the incident 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 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.”
KENYA HOSTS US EBOLA QUARANTINE FACILITY
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.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, whether living or dead. The disease can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding.
The outbreak in Congo was declared in mid-May but may have started months earlier. Caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, it has been blamed for more than 4,000 deaths.
(Reporting by Vincent Mumo Nzilani and Edwin Okoth in Nairobi. Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva and Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, Writing by Aaron Ross, Editing by Alexander Winning, Mark Potter, Susan Fenton and Sanjeev Miglani)
Comments