Kenya’s Health Ministry announced the country’s second Ebola death on Friday (October 23, 2026), saying a 65-year-old woman who was a close relative of the first patient died after developing symptoms while in quarantine.
No new infections were reported. The remaining seven Ebola patients were receiving treatment at two isolation facilities. The woman tested positive for the virus upon her return to Nigeria’s capital of Abuja from Uganda.
The woman began showing symptoms 10 days ago and began receiving supportive care at an infectious disease unit in the capital, Nairobi. In Nigeria, authorities said on Friday (October 23) that they were yet to verify how the country’s first Ebola patient contracted the disease. The Africa CDC earlier said the first patients in Nigeria and Kenya had travelled through Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on October 3.
Nigeria’s Health Minister Muhammad Pate told reporters on Friday (October 23) that the Nigerian patient “appears to be closely related” to the first case in Kenya in terms of the nature of their infection. “That may or may not change the understanding of the route of transmission given that the virus itself takes time to change,” Mr. Pate said.
