A Kenyan man living in the Democratic Republic of Congo died of Ebola on Monday in a Nairobi hospital, Kenyan authorities announced Tuesday.
According to Kenyan Health Minister Aden Duale, the victim had fallen ill about a month ago and had been treated in several hospitals before crossing the border into Uganda by road and then flying to Nairobi.
This is the first recorded death linked to the Ebola virus in Kenya.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the grip of its 17th Ebola outbreak, which in just a few months has become the deadliest ever recorded in this vast Central African country. To date, 8,300 cases have been identified, including more than 4,000 deaths, according to the latest figures from Congolese authorities.
According to Kenyan Health Minister Aden Duale, the victim, a Kenyan man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo for seven years, fell ill about a month ago and received treatment in several hospitals there. He then crossed the border into Uganda by road and flew from Kampala airport to Nairobi on October 3, according to the same source.
Upon landing, a family member and a friend of the patient then took him to a public hospital in Nairobi, where he was placed in isolation as he presented with “fever, chills, intense fatigue, weakness, muscle pain, painful swallowing, sore throat and bleeding under the skin at the injection sites,” the minister listed.
These were all symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which tests later confirmed he was carrying. He died on Monday at 11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. GMT), Aden Duale said.
Some 28 members of the deceased’s family and the 23 passengers and four crew members of the Kampala-Nairobi flight must be quickly placed under surveillance, he added.
“Don’t panic”
“I wish to reassure the population and urge them not to panic, as all measures are in place to limit the spread of the disease,” the Kenyan Health Minister added.
There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment against the Bundibugyo strain causing the current outbreak.
Some 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, licensed against Zaire, another strain of the virus, have been sent to the DRC to assess its impact on Bundibugyo.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Monday of a “worrying surge” in Ebola cases in North Kivu , a region in eastern DRC bordering Uganda, where nearly 40% of new cases are now being recorded, according to the NGO. The Ebola epidemic is not receding but “shifting,” the NGO had recently stated.
In mid-September, the World Health Organization ( WHO ) was already warning about the “exponential” progression of the virus in this province, with a doubling of the number of weekly deaths during the first half of September.
The WHO declared the Ebola epidemic in Uganda over on August 27, as no new infections were recorded for a period of 42 days after the last patient was discharged from the hospital.
Some 20 infections had been confirmed in Uganda and two of the patients had died there, the others having all recovered, according to the Ugandan Ministry of Health.
