Kenya Reports Second Ebola Death as Cases Rise to Nine

Nairobi: Kenya’s Health Ministry announced the country’s second Ebola death on Friday, saying a 65-year-old woman who was a close relative of the first patient died after developing symptoms while in quarantine.

According to the ministry, medical staff did everything possible to save her. She developed symptoms on October 13 while under quarantine and was admitted the same day to an infectious disease unit in Nairobi, dying on Friday evening. Kenya now has nine confirmed cases, including two deaths, with the remaining seven patients receiving treatment at two isolation facilities.

Authorities have identified about 135 contacts of the first patient, placing 118 of them in quarantine. Eight of those in quarantine have tested positive, including four health workers and four close family members.

The case is linked to a wider regional outbreak. Africa CDC said the first patients in both Nigeria and Kenya travelled through Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on October 3, and BBC reported that health officials are investigating whether the two crossed paths. Nigeria’s Health Minister Muhammad Pate said on Friday that authorities were still trying to establish how the country’s first patient was infected, noting that the person did not travel to Congo. He said the Nigerian case appeared closely related to Kenya’s first case in the nature of the infection, which may or may not change the understanding of how the virus is spreading, since the virus itself takes time to change.

The Ebola outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain and declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May, has also reached Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria, with Africa CDC describing it as the most geographically widespread in the disease’s history.