Kenya confirms second Ebola case, a relative of first patient

Kenya’s Health Min­istry con­firmed the coun­try’s sec­ond Ebo­la case Wednes­day, say­ing a rel­a­tive of the man who died two days af­ter ar­riv­ing from Con­go had test­ed pos­i­tive while in quar­an­tine.

The min­istry said the 39-year-old man had been iden­ti­fied as a close rel­a­tive of Kenya’s first Ebo­la case and de­vel­oped symp­toms Tues­day.

The first pa­tient, a 40-year-old Kenyan, had been liv­ing in Con­go, where he fell ill and was treat­ed at two health fa­cil­i­ties. He trav­elled through three Ebo­la-af­fect­ed provinces be­fore leav­ing the coun­try and ar­riv­ing in neigh­bour­ing Ugan­da on Oct. 1. He flew to Kenya, where a rel­a­tive picked him up at the air­port and drove him to a hos­pi­tal. He be­gan re­ceiv­ing treat­ment and test­ed pos­i­tive for Ebo­la on Oct. 5. He died that day.

Health of­fi­cials iden­ti­fied about 128 con­tacts linked to the first case and placed 108 of them in quar­an­tine. Five of the con­tacts are out­side Kenya, and au­thor­i­ties in those coun­tries have been no­ti­fied, ac­cord­ing to Kenya’s Min­istry of Health.

The sec­ond pa­tient was among those quar­an­tined. The health min­istry said ear­ly de­tec­tion of the in­fec­tion “im­proves his chances of re­cov­ery.”

The min­istry said the two cas­es were linked and there was “no ev­i­dence of spread in the com­mu­ni­ty”.

Kenya has tight­ened screen­ing at bor­der cross­ings and air­ports since de­tect­ing its first Ebo­la case and urged the pub­lic to take pre­cau­tions and re­port sus­pect­ed in­fec­tions through an emer­gency hot­line. —NAIRO­BI, Kenya (AP)

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Sto­ry by EVE­LYNE MUSAM­BI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press