NAIROBI (The Thursday Times) — Kenya has discharged its last Ebola patient, starting a 42-day countdown before the country can be declared free of the virus, a month after its first case was confirmed.
“Today with the discharge of the last patient we can confirm and tell the world that seven patients have recovered, and all contacts have completed their follow-up monitoring,” Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said on Wednesday.
He said all 135 people identified as contacts of the infected patients had finished their 21 days of isolation. No patients remain in treatment and no one is in quarantine.
Nine infections, two deaths
Kenya’s outbreak began in early October, when a Kenyan businessman who had caught the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo died within days of arriving in Nairobi, having travelled through Uganda.
Eight other people were infected, four health workers and four of his relatives. His mother died; the other seven recovered. Five were discharged on November 3, a sixth three days later, and the last on Wednesday. Kenya has reported no new confirmed case since October 20, and health officials found no evidence of wider spread in the community.
Under World Health Organization rules, an outbreak can be declared over only when 42 days, two full incubation periods, have passed after the last patient tests negative and leaves care.
Surveillance stays on
Duale said screening would continue at border crossings, airports, and health facilities throughout the countdown. Kenyans returning from affected areas must fill in an electronic health declaration, be screened on arrival, and spend 21 days in supervised quarantine.
He also urged countries that had imposed travel and visa restrictions on Kenya to reconsider them. Saudi Arabia was among the countries that barred travellers from Kenya after the first case.
The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kaseya, called it “an encouraging moment for Kenya and for Africa”, but said surveillance must be kept up until the outbreak is officially declared over.
Congo’s outbreak is still growing
The wider outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, has no approved vaccine. In Congo, where it began in May, the latest figures show 11,042 infections and 5,387 deaths, with the virus detected in eight of the country’s 26 provinces. TT reported earlier this month that deaths had passed 5,300.
Kenya is the third African country outside Congo to record a case from this outbreak, after Nigeria, which has had one case, and Uganda, which recorded 20 cases earlier this year and has since been declared free of Ebola.
