Kenya has confirmed a second Ebola case involving a close relative of the first patient. The 39-year-old man was already in quarantine when he developed symptoms, with health officials stating there is no evidence of wider community spread.
Kenya has confirmed a second case of Ebola, 10 days after a businessman died of the virus after travelling to the East African nation from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The new patient, a 39-year-old man, is a close relative of the first case and was already in quarantine when he fell ill on Tuesday, Kenya's health ministry says.
The incubation period for Ebola ranges from two to 21 days, meaning those exposed to the virus may not become ill for several weeks. Detecting the new patient's illness early had improved his chances of recovery and limited the chance of him passing the virus on to others, the ministry said.
"Both cases are linked, and there is no evidence of spread in the wider community," the ministry said. "Kenya remains open, with no restrictions on travel, trade or public gatherings", it added.
Since the death of the first patient, a 40-year-old Kenyan man who died on 5 October, officials determined that he had been in contact with 128 people. As of Tuesday, 113 of them had been found, the health ministry said. Of these, 108 were in quarantine in Kenya and tracing of the remaining 15 continued.
The first patient had travelled from DR Congo, through Uganda to Kenya without his illness being detected. He was diagnosed with Ebola shortly after being admitted to a hospital in the capital, Nairobi, where a relative had taken him after picking him up at the airport.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the continent's leading public health agency, has reconstructed the Kenyan patient's movements for the six weeks leading up to his death. It revealed that he first started feeling unwell in DR Congo on 15 September and showed how several opportunities to detect the infection were missed, including during several visits to Congolese medical facilities.
He then managed to travel through Uganda to Kenya and was again not detected at airport screenings. Health experts say this highlights the limitations of relying on temperature checks and self-declarations.
Alan Kasujja, executive director of the Ugandan government’s media centre, questioned how Kenya allowed the man to enter via its airport. "Leave Uganda out of this conversation. We don’t have Ebola here," he wrote on X.
The current outbreak in DR Congo, which began in May, has been caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which is relatively rare, with no approved vaccine or treatment, though trials are under way. More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola in DR Congo this year, in what is the second most deadly known outbreak to date.
Uganda reported 20 cases and two deaths earlier in the year but was declared Ebola-free in August by the World Health Organization (WHO). Kenya is the fourth country to record a case linked to the Ebola epidemic in the DRC.
The confirmation of a second case linked to the first victim underscores the challenges of border screening and contact tracing in managing cross-border disease transmission. While the Kenyan health ministry has stated there is no evidence of spread in the wider community, the incident has raised questions about the effectiveness of current screening measures at airports and borders in detecting infected individuals before they enter new jurisdictions.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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