Kenya confirms four new Ebola cases, three of them health workers who treated its first patient


Kenyan health officials sit around a conference table with laptops at an Ebola response meeting chaired by Principal Secretary Mary Muthoni in Nairobi

Kenyan health officials at an Ebola response meeting chaired by Principal Secretary for Public Health Mary Muthoni Muriuki in Nairobi on Saturday, October 17, 2026. (Photo: Kenya Ministry of Health via X)

Kenya's Ministry of Health confirmed four new cases of Bundibugyo Ebola on Saturday, three of them health workers who treated the country's first patient, bringing the total to seven, including one death.

On Sunday, Dr. Patrick Amoth, Kenya's Director-General for Health, confirmed one more case, bringing the country's total to eight, the ministry said on X. Of 38 people tested that day, one, a 49-year-old man who is not a health worker, tested positive after developing fever, headache and muscle pain, Amoth said, according to the ministry.

The fourth new patient is a close male relative of the man who died, the ministry said, and he had been in quarantine since October 6. The health workers, two men and a woman aged 29, 35 and 32, cared for the first patient at the hospital on October 3 and 4 and had been in quarantine since October 9, the ministry said, according to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. BBC Amharic gave the dates as Meskerem 23 and 24, 2019 in the Ethiopian calendar for the treatment and Meskerem 29 for the start of quarantine.

Dr. Patrick Amoth, Kenya's Director-General for Health, said all four developed fever as their first symptom, were isolated at once and tested positive at both the National Virology Reference Laboratory and the Kenya Medical Research Institute laboratory. "The second and third patients are stable and are responding well on supportive treatment," he said.

Of the 130 contacts identified, 128, or 98.5 percent, had been traced and placed in quarantine, the ministry said, calling that "above the global contact-tracing benchmark of 85 per cent." It said intensive efforts were under way to trace the remaining two. The ministry said there is no evidence of community transmission and that the risk to the general public remains low.

Amoth warned that new cases among people in quarantine are possible until their 21-day monitoring period ends. "We are closely monitoring four family members of the deceased index case and all the health workers who took care of him during his hospital stay," he said. He added that Kenya remains open for business, with no restrictions on travel, trade or public gatherings.

Saturday's announcement came a day after Kenya confirmed its third case, a 65-year-old woman who was a close relative of the first patient and who tested positive while already in quarantine, BBC Amharic reported.

The first patient was a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He fell ill about a month before he reached Kenya and was treated at several hospitals in Congo, then traveled by road to Kampala and flew to Nairobi on Jambojet flight 8523, arriving on Saturday, October 3, the ministry said in its first statement on the case. He died on October 6, according to a ministry statement the following day. BBC Amharic said he had lived in Congo for seven years.

The Kenyan cases are linked to the outbreak in Congo, where more than 9,000 people have been infected and more than 4,300 have died, BBC Amharic reported. There is no vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain. Two candidate vaccines have been proposed, but none has yet gone through clinical trials, Dr. Vasee Moorthy, an adviser at the World Health Organization, said, according to BBC Amharic.

Travelers from Ethiopia are among those Kenya has singled out for extra checks. A day after Kenya confirmed its first case, its Ministry of Health said on October 7 that screening had been intensified at Gate 16 of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, especially for passengers arriving from Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Angola, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, and urged travelers to fill in health declaration forms truthfully.

Mereja has asked the Ethiopian Public Health Institute what screening Ethiopia has put in place for travelers from Kenya and will update this story with any response.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based in Addis Ababa, said that detecting all four new cases among people already in quarantine "demonstrates the critical role of contact tracing, surveillance and timely isolation in interrupting transmission." It also stressed the need for infection prevention measures, protective equipment and training for frontline health workers, who it said "face significant risks while caring for affected patients."

The infections among medical staff prompted questions on X. Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, the founder and principal pathologist of Dr Kalebi Labs, noted that the ministry had said on October 6 that the patient was "quickly isolated" on arrival, and that the hospital had said its staff "worked in full protective equipment under supervision." He asked when a viral hemorrhagic fever was first suspected, when full infection control precautions were put in place, and whether anyone was inadequately protected before then.

In a separate post on Sunday, Kalebi wrote that there was "no established evidence that the deceased patient or his family knew he had Ebola," and that the focus should be on how "an unwell traveller from an outbreak-affected country passed successive screening points."

Simon Mburu, a journalist at Nation Media Group, reported on X that Amoth said efforts had been doubled to trace the two remaining contacts. Writing in French, Willy Buloso, who describes himself as a manager and lawyer, said that with seven cases Nairobi was now on "the black list" and that Kenya's tourism sector "will pay very dearly for it."

The Kenyan ministry urged anyone with fever, unusual tiredness, muscle or joint pain, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea or unexplained bleeding to report to the nearest health facility. "Remember Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a sick or deceased person, not through the air," Amoth said.

Sources

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