Kenya confirms third Ebola case, a relative of the first patient who died

Kenya’s health min­istry con­firmed that a third per­son test­ed pos­i­tive for Ebo­la on Fri­day while in quar­an­tine af­ter be­ing iden­ti­fied as a known con­tact of the first pa­tient, who died two days af­ter ar­riv­ing from Con­go.

The min­istry said in a state­ment that the third pa­tient was a 65-year-old woman who is a rel­a­tive of the 40-year-old man who died from Ebo­la on Oct. 5.

The woman has been in quar­an­tine since Oct. 6 and de­vel­oped symp­toms be­fore test­ing pos­i­tive for the virus. She has since been trans­ferred to the In­fec­tious Dis­ease Unit, the min­istry said.

The sec­ond pa­tient, a 39-year-old man from the same fam­i­ly, re­mains in sta­ble con­di­tion, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health.

The min­istry said there was no ev­i­dence of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion, as all cas­es were linked to the first pa­tient and the in­di­vid­u­als had been in quar­an­tine.

Ebo­la is high­ly con­ta­gious and spreads through di­rect con­tact with the bod­i­ly flu­ids of an in­fect­ed per­son, in­clud­ing blood and vom­it, or through con­tact with con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ma­te­ri­als and sur­faces, such as bed­ding and cloth­ing. Con­go has been hav­ing its dead­liest out­break, with at least 4,000 deaths since May.

Three con­tacts linked to Kenya’s first case have yet to be traced. Ef­forts to trace peo­ple who in­ter­act­ed with the pa­tient in neigh­bor­ing Ugan­da and Con­go have al­so faced chal­lenges. The pa­tient had been liv­ing in Con­go and had trav­elled through three Ebo­la-af­fect­ed provinces.

Health work­ers have been urg­ing com­mu­ni­ties to share in­for­ma­tion if they sus­pect they may have in­ter­act­ed with an Ebo­la pa­tient.

Dr. Bar­bara Mut­ti­mos of Médecins Sans Fron­tières, or MSF, al­so known as Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press in a re­cent in­ter­view that peo­ple should be “hon­est about their ex­po­sures” and dis­close their trav­el his­to­ry and symp­toms.

She said the chances of sur­vival are high­er when the virus is de­tect­ed ear­ly.

Kenya has in­ten­si­fied screen­ing at bor­der cross­ings na­tion­wide, with a des­ig­nat­ed gate at the main air­port in the cap­i­tal, Nairo­bi, for all flights ar­riv­ing from 10 coun­tries iden­ti­fied as be­ing at the cen­ter of the Ebo­la out­break.

At the Bu­sia bor­der cross­ing with Ugan­da, The As­so­ci­at­ed Press wit­nessed en­hanced screen­ing pro­ce­dures, with mem­bers of the pub­lic wash­ing their hands and hav­ing their tem­per­a­tures checked.

Res­i­dents are, how­ev­er, con­cerned about il­le­gal cross­ings along the bor­der.

A trad­er in Bu­sia town, Richard Onyan­go, said the gov­ern­ment should find “oth­er ways of screen­ing” be­cause many peo­ple cross the bor­der through un­of­fi­cial routes. —NAIRO­BI, Kenya (AP)

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Sto­ry by EVE­LYNE MUSAM­BI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist An­drew Ka­suku con­tributed from Bu­sia, Kenya.