The last Ebola patient in Kenya has been discharged - now the countdown begins

A Kenyan Ebola-infected businessman who worked for many years in the Democratic Republic of Congo landed on October 3 in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where he died two days later. On the short journey from the airport to the hospital, the man managed to infect four family members. Another four people employed at the hospital were infected before it was confirmed that it was the dreaded disease and security measures were subsequently taken.

The man's mother later died. But the others have survived and on Wednesday the last patient could be discharged from hospital. At the same time, eleven people were released from quarantine, reports Reuters.

Thus begins a countdown until the country can be declared free of Ebola. The maximum incubation period for the disease is 21 days and, for safety reasons, the double incubation period – 42 days – is used as a benchmark for the country to be declared free of Ebola.

Such an announcement can therefore only come on December 23. But it is still good news for the tourism industry, which is heading towards the high season around Christmas and New Year.

The Kenyan man may have been the one who infected a Swiss diplomat's wife at the airport in Uganda, when they were queuing for different flights at the same time. The Kenyan had traveled for three days through Uganda on his way from the Congolese border to the airport outside the capital, Kampala.

The woman had been in her native Uganda on a couple of weeks' holiday and fell ill when she landed in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. The fears have been great for the continued spread of infection in Nigeria, where the election campaign has started ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections in January. No new cases have yet appeared in Nigeria and the woman has been evacuated to Switzerland for further treatment.

Both Kenya and Uganda seem to have contained the virus at the moment, but there are still several question marks about the spread of infection in Uganda. Should there not be a connection between the two cases, there may be an ongoing spread of infection in Uganda that has not been detected by the authorities.

At the same time, developments are still serious in the Congo, where the virus, of the unusual variant bundibugyo, was discovered in May. On Tuesday, the number of infected people exceeded 11,000, of which 5,400 have died, according to AP. The outbreak is by a good margin the worst in the country's history and a number of aid organizations have warned that it could be the largest ever. The virus has now affected eight different regions in the Congo.