Kenyan health officials confirmed the country’s first-ever Ebola case on Tuesday after a traveler from Congo died in isolation at Nairobi Hospital.
The patient, a Kenyan citizen who had been living in Congo for the past seven years, arrived in Nairobi on Saturday afternoon aboard a flight from Kampala, Uganda, according to Health Minister Aden Duale. He had fallen ill about a month earlier and received treatment at various hospitals before traveling by road to the Ugandan capital to catch the flight.
Duale said the man tested positive for the Ebola virus at Nairobi Hospital, where he was immediately isolated upon arrival in a private vehicle driven by relatives. He died late Monday. The body will be buried within 24 hours under recommended public safety protocols.
The case marks Kenya as the fourth country drawn into the current outbreak, which was declared in mid-May in eastern Congo after months of undetected spread in a remote region. Uganda has recorded 20 cases and France one. Before Kenya’s confirmation, no active cases existed outside Congo since Uganda declared its outbreak over in late August.
At least 8,400 cases have been recorded in Congo, including over 4,000 deaths, making it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history according to government data. The virus has now spread to seven provinces there.
Kenya had never previously recorded an Ebola outbreak, according to the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Since May, authorities had tested 267 samples at five laboratories across the country before this first detection.
Contact tracing began immediately. Duale said 28 contacts had been identified, including family members and health workers who treated the patient. Another 23 passengers from the same flight were also being traced. The contacts will remain in isolation for 21 days and be released only after testing negative, according to Patrick Amoth, the ministry’s director.
Border points across Kenya have been placed on high alert for additional cases.
The outbreak’s scale in Congo has overwhelmed responders. Health teams have faced physical attacks, misinformation campaigns, local reluctance to report symptoms, and rebel violence restricting access to treatment centers. While case numbers have slowed in Ituri province, the original epicenter, transmission is accelerating in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
“It is like fighting a megafire. Multiple outbreaks are developing at the same time, with varying intensity and in different locations,” Stéphanie Hoffmann with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement.
Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids including vomit, blood and semen, as well as contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing.
Kenya hosts a United States-funded isolation center where American citizens exposed to Ebola quarantine for 21 days before returning to the U.S. That facility has previously faced legal challenges and deadly protests by locals who feared it was exposing them to the virus.
The World Health Organization has warned the current outbreak could surpass the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which killed over 11,000 people in West Africa more than a decade ago.
Health authorities in Congo continue struggling to contain transmission across multiple provinces simultaneously.