Overview
- Health officials confirmed late Friday that a 65-year-old woman who was a close relative of Kenya’s first Ebola patient died after developing symptoms while in quarantine.
- Kenya has nine confirmed cases in the single cluster, including the two deaths, and seven patients remain in treatment at two isolation facilities with no evidence of wider community spread.
- Authorities identified about 135 contacts of the index patient, placed roughly 118 under quarantine, and reported eight contacts testing positive while quarantined, including four health workers.
- The cluster began with a 40-year-old man who returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo and died after testing positive; the virus has been identified as the Bundibugyo strain for which no licensed vaccine or proven targeted treatment exists and care is supportive.
- The outbreak sits against a large, decentralized epidemic in the DRC that has exported cases to several countries, prompting regional coordination and vaccine trial preparations and making continued cross-border surveillance and strict contact monitoring the key near-term priorities.