Kenya has no Ebola outbreak, Duale says after imported case confirmed

NAIROBI, Kenya Oct 7 – Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has sought to calm public fears over Ebola, saying Kenya has recorded an imported case of Bundibugyo virus disease but is not experiencing an outbreak. Duale said the patient, a Kenyan who had lived and worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for seven years, contracted the virus there before travelling by road to Uganda and later flying to Nairobi. “We don’t have an Ebola outbreak in Kenya.

What we have is an imported Ebola incident, just like the same happened in Germany and in France,” Duale said during a television interview on Wednesday. The patient had been unwell for about a month and had received treatment at several health facilities in the DRC before beginning his journey back to Kenya. According to Duale, the patient travelled from the DRC to Kampala, where he spent a day before buying his air ticket on October 2.

He subsequently boarded Jambojet flight JM8523 and arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on October 3 at about 1.10pm. He underwent routine screening at the airport before proceeding through immigration. Duale said the patient was on medication when he arrived in Kenya, which may have suppressed his symptoms and enabled him to pass the thermal screening at JKIA.

“When he came to Kenya, this patient was on medication, so he must have taken heavy medications. And that again helped him not to be detected at our thermal scanners at JKIA,” he said. From the airport, the patient was picked up by relatives and a friend and driven directly to Nairobi Hospital.

Patient Isolation Duale said the patient walked from the vehicle into the hospital’s casualty department before doctors assessed him and noted symptoms that raised concern. These included fever, chills, severe fatigue and weakness, muscle pain, painful swallowing, a sore throat and bleeding under the skin at injection sites. His travel history and symptoms prompted doctors to suspect a viral haemorrhagic fever.

He was isolated and later transferred to the hospital’s East Wing isolation facility, which had previously been used during the Covid-19 pandemic. Samples were collected and tested at the National Virology Reference Laboratory and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), with both laboratories returning positive results for Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease. Duale said further confirmation was subsequent…