NAIROBI, – Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on Tuesday after a Kenyan citizen who had travelled from Democratic Republic of Congo died in Nairobi.
A doctor who returned to France in June from Congo tested positive but there was no further spread of the virus. After arriving at Nairobi’s international airport, he passed through health screening and was later taken by a relative to Nairobi Hospital. 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.
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. 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.
He was admitted with fever, chills and bleeding beneath the skin and was quickly placed in isolation, 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 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.
