Kenya confirms four new Ebola cases, total rises to seven
Kenya has confirmed four new Ebola Bundibugyo cases — three health workers and a male relative of the first patient — bringing total confirmed infections to seven, in the first known transmissions inside the country.
NAIROBI — Kenya’s health ministry confirmed on Saturday four new cases of the Ebola Bundibugyo virus, bringing confirmed infections to seven, including the first patient who died. The cases are the first known infections transmitted inside Kenya, Reuters reported.
The new patients include three health workers — two men aged 29 and 35 and a woman aged 32 — who treated the index patient on October 3–4 and had been in quarantine since October 9. The fourth is a male relative of the index patient, quarantined since October 6, announced in a statement signed by Health Director-General Dr Patrick Amoth, Kenyans.co.ke reported.
The ministry said all four patients were already in quarantine when they developed fever and were diagnosed, after testing positive at the National Virology Reference Laboratory and KEMRI. The second and third patients confirmed earlier are stable and responding well to treatment, it said.
The ministry also said it had traced and quarantined 128 of 130 listed contacts — 98.5 per cent, above the 85 per cent global benchmark to break transmission — and that the risk to the general public remains low, with no restrictions on travel, trade or public gatherings. It cautioned that further cases among quarantined contacts remain possible until their 21-day monitoring period ends, The Eastleigh Voice reported.
Kenya’s cases are linked to the Ebola epidemic in Congo — the second-largest outbreak ever recorded, with more than 9,000 cases and 4,000 deaths — with no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo strain.
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