Kenya Records a Second Ebola Death as Outbreak Reaches Four Countries, but Nairobi Sees No Community Spread

Kenya has announced a second death from Ebola. The Ministry of Health said on Friday that the latest person to die was a 65-year-old woman who had developed symptoms while in quarantine and was a close relative of a Kenyan man who died of Ebola earlier this month.

According to the ministry, Kenya currently has seven Ebola patients receiving treatment at two isolation facilities. Officials stressed that all the cases sit within “one cluster, with no evidence of community spread” — a distinction that matters greatly for how the outbreak is being fought.

Kenya's first Ebola case was identified this month in a man who had travelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Kenya and died at a Nairobi hospital on October 5. That first patient is understood to have started the chain of infections inside Kenya.

Since that first case was identified, Kenyan authorities have traced 135 contacts, all of whom were placed in quarantine. Nine cases have now been confirmed in the country, including the two patients who have died. Watching those contacts closely is now the main tool for stopping the virus.

The source of the outbreak is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which declared its 17th Ebola outbreak in May. Since then the DRC has reported more than 9,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths — figures that underline how large this outbreak has become.

Ebola is an old terror in Africa. The deadly disease has killed more than 15,000 people on the continent over the past 50 years, and each outbreak, with its fever and haemorrhagic symptoms, becomes a severe test for health systems.

The most worrying feature of the current outbreak is its geographic reach. It has now been reported in four countries across eastern, central and western Africa, giving it the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date.

On Tuesday, Nigeria became the fourth African country to report an Ebola case. Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said on Friday that analysis showed the case was closely related to the virus detected in the index case in Kenya.

Neighbouring countries are also moving to protect themselves. Uganda announced on Saturday that travellers with a history of travel to the DRC would not be permitted to transit through the East African nation — a travel restriction aimed at stopping the virus crossing borders.

Uganda's own experience is recent. It had recorded 20 people infected, almost all of whom had travelled from the DRC, and two deaths, before being declared Ebola-free in August. That experience explains why it has acted early and firmly this time.

For Kenya, the one source of relief is that every case belongs to the same cluster. There is still no evidence that the virus has spread through unknown chains into the general population. But a death following symptoms that appeared during quarantine shows how much depends on every single day of monitoring.

The coming days will be decided by the 135 people in quarantine. If a new patient appears outside this cluster, the picture will change; if the cluster is held, there will be hope of stopping this outbreak within a limited circle.