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Kenya confirms eighth Ebola case, a hospital attendant exposed to the first patient
The 49-year-old man was the only positive result among 38 people tested on Sunday, as Congo's Bundibugyo outbreak spreads to an eighth province.
Key points
- Kenya's eighth case is a 49-year-old patient attendant who cleaned utensils and linens.
- He was the only positive among 38 people tested on Sunday, Health Director-General Patrick Amoth said.
- Congo has recorded at least 9,400 cases and more than 4,500 deaths since May.
Kenya has confirmed its eighth case of Ebola, a 49-year-old man who worked as a patient attendant and is believed to have caught the virus from the country’s first patient.
Health Director-General Patrick Amoth said the man was the only positive result among 38 people tested on Sunday. He had developed fever, headache and muscle pain. Unlike several of the recent cases, he is not a health worker; his job was cleaning utensils and linens.
The new case follows four confirmed on Saturday. Three of those were health workers who had treated Kenya’s first patient, a man who travelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and died at a Nairobi hospital on 5 October. The fourth was a relative of that patient.
The outbreak is of the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine and no specific treatment.
Across the border in Congo the epidemic is the deadliest in the country’s history. At least 9,400 cases and more than 4,500 deaths have been recorded since it began in May. Ituri province accounts for nearly three-quarters of confirmed cases, and the virus has now reached North Ubangi, the eighth province to be affected.
North Kivu province is bringing in a one-week ban on entry from Ituri, along with limits on the number of passengers in cars and on motorbikes and a suspension of large public gatherings.
Uganda recorded 20 confirmed cases, 15 of them imported from Congo, and two deaths before it was declared free of Ebola in August.