WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The World Health Organization has announced that a second person tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus in Kenya.
The patient, a 39-year-old man, is a relative of Kenya's first case - who died in hospital on October 5. He was among contacts who were placed in quarantine and developed symptoms on October 13.
Kenya's first Ebola patient and fatality was a local man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the record outbreak continues to spread in the east.
He arrived in Kenyan capital Nairobi via Uganda on October 3 and died in hospital two days later.
'I congratulate the Government for taking this important step to ensure that contacts are listed and quarantined,' WHO Representative Dr. Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo told UN News in Nairobi.
Dr.Kimambo commended health authorities who 'cast the net very wide' to identify people who had come into contact with him - whether in the air or on the ground.
The more than 40 people included airline passengers and crew, airplane cleaners, airport workers, baggage handlers and immigration officials, as well as health personnel and family members.
Most are in quarantine, while a few low-risk contacts have self-quarantined and are being monitored. Meanwhile, every effort is being made to reach six passengers who have been difficult to locate because they have foreign phone numbers, WHO said.
Even before the first case, WHO and the Kenyan Government were stepping up Ebola preparedness after the outbreak was declared in the DR Congo in May. Neighbouring Uganda also confronted the disease, with any outbreak officially ruled out in late August.
Copyright(c) 2026 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2026 AFX News
