Ebola spreads further: Kenya confirms an eighth case and Congo's record outbreak reaches an eighth province
A 49-year-old hospital attendant became Kenya's eighth confirmed patient, while the Democratic Republic of Congo reported cases in Nord-Ubangi, on the border with the Central African Republic. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain for which there is no approved vaccine, has killed more than 4,500 people in Congo.
Kenya's health ministry confirmed another Ebola case on Sunday, bringing the country's total to eight. Health director-general Patrick Amoth told Citizen TV that 38 people had been tested that day and one was positive: a 49-year-old man, not a health worker, who developed fever, headache and muscle pain. He worked as a patient attendant cleaning utensils and linen and was probably exposed to Kenya's first case, a man who travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Nairobi and died in hospital there on 5 October.
Four new cases had been reported on Saturday, three of them health workers who treated that first patient and the fourth a relative of his. Amoth said people in quarantine are tested as soon as they develop symptoms and that the other six patients are stable after supportive treatment.
In Congo, authorities said the outbreak had reached an eighth province, Nord-Ubangi in the north, where two cases including one death were recorded. The province borders the Central African Republic. Congo has counted at least 9,400 cases and more than 4,500 deaths since the outbreak was declared in May, the deadliest in its history, with Ituri province in the east accounting for almost three quarters of confirmed cases. The World Health Organization's Africa director, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said pockets of infection are generally declining but the virus is spreading geographically.
To slow transmission, North Kivu province is introducing a one-week ban from Monday on people entering from Ituri, along with limits on passengers in cars and on motorbikes and a suspension of large public gatherings. The epidemic is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola with no approved vaccine or specific treatment. Neighbouring Uganda recorded 20 cases and two deaths before being declared Ebola-free in August.
Source: DW (with Al Jazeera, AP)