First Ebola case confirmed in Kenya

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second largest ever and by a good margin the largest that has hit the country so far. Over 4,000 people have died from the disease since the outbreak was confirmed in May. The spread of the infection occurs in the isolated parts of northeastern Congo, but there has been great concern that the virus will spread further to the capital Kinshasa or more densely populated areas in East Africa.

Thanks to an extensive effort, Uganda has managed to stop the spread of the infection after a few cases were imported from Congo during the first phase of the epidemic. But now it is in Kenya that a first case has been confirmed.

On Tuesday morning, Health Minister Aden Duale announced that one person had died shortly after returning to Kenya. The man must have lived in the Congo for seven years and must have already fallen ill a month ago. This is consistent with descriptions of the bundibugyovirus, the variant of Ebola ravaging the Congo. Several survivors that DN spoke to have testified about how they first fell ill and then got better before the situation worsened again. Other variants of Ebola often have a more rapid disease course.

- The Ministry of Health wishes to inform the public that we have confirmed the first imported case of Ebola Bundibugyo disease, Duale said at a press conference according to local media.

In Congo, staff in an underfunded and severely understaffed healthcare sector are struggling to stop the spread of infection and deal with the huge number of patients who must receive isolation care.

In Kenya, the situation is reversed. There is well-developed primary care and also more advanced care facilities. However, unlike the Congo, there is no experience of this type of disease, except for a couple of historical cases of the related Marburg virus.

And like Congo, winning public trust in the fight against the virus is a challenge. In June, a Kenyan man was killed in connection with protests against a treatment center that the United States wanted to build on a military base in central Kenya. Construction was later stopped by a court.

The man who died in Kenya is the only known case in the country at the moment. But the question is how many people he has had time to come into contact with during the days that he, seriously ill, made his way from the Congo to Kenya. He is said to have been treated at several different hospitals in the Congo before traveling by land to Uganda, where on October 6 he boarded a plane to Nairobi.