Kenya has recorded its first confirmed case of Ebola, a Kenyan citizen who traveled home from the Democratic Republic of Congo and died at a Nairobi hospital late Monday, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said Tuesday.
The patient tested positive for Bundibugyo ebolavirus, the rare strain behind Congo’s ongoing outbreak, according to the Daily Nation and Reuters.
The patient’s journey
The man had lived in Congo for the past seven years and fell ill about a month ago, receiving treatment at several hospitals there, Duale told reporters, as reported by the Daily Nation. He traveled by road to Kampala, Uganda, then boarded Jambo Jet flight 8523 and landed at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 1:10 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.
He passed through routine port health screening and immigration, then was driven directly to Nairobi Hospital by a relative and a friend, according to The Star. There he was quickly isolated in the emergency department and moved to the hospital’s East Wing isolation facility, which had been set up for COVID-19 patients.
He arrived with fever, chills, intense fatigue, muscle pain, a sore throat, painful swallowing and bleeding under the skin at injection sites. Given those symptoms and his travel history, a doctor took a sample that tested positive at both the National Virology Reference Laboratory and the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Daily Nation reported. He received supportive care but died at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, and officials planned a burial Tuesday under Ebola safe-burial protocols.
Contact tracing widens
“So far, we have listed 28 contacts of the deceased, including family members and healthcare workers who attended to the deceased,” Duale said, according to The Star. “We are also pursuing a further 23 passengers and four crew members who were on the same flight as the deceased.” The Daily Nation reported that arrangements to quarantine those at risk were underway.
Duale said Kenya has been on high alert since Congo’s outbreak began in May. The ministry says it has screened 652,584 travelers and tested 267 samples, with only this one positive, and has notified the World Health Organization. “I wish to reassure the public not to panic, as all systems are in place to mitigate the spread of the disease,” he said.
A record outbreak next door
Congo is battling its largest-ever Ebola outbreak. Declared in mid-May, it may have started months earlier and has resisted containment, with more than 8,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths, Reuters reported. It earlier spread to Uganda, which reported 20 cases and two deaths before the WHO declared it free of the disease in August.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, living or dead, and can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhea and, in severe cases, bleeding. Kenyan health officials urged people to wash their hands often, avoid close contact with sick travelers from affected countries and seek care at a recognized facility if they feel unwell.
Image: CDC / Cynthia Goldsmith (public domain). Colorized transmission electron micrograph of an Ebola virus virion; laboratory file image.
Sources: Daily Nation; The Star (Kenya); Reuters (via TimesLIVE).
This article was produced with AI assistance and is based on reporting from Daily Nation, The Star (Kenya) and Reuters (via TimesLIVE).