Kenya confirms a second Ebola case, a quarantined relative of the first patient, with 113 of 128 contacts traced

Kenya now has its second Ebola case, and the detail health officials keep returning to is that the system caught this one inside quarantine.

The health ministry said on Wednesday that the patient is a 39 year old man, a close family member of Kenya's first case, who was already in quarantine and under daily monitoring when he developed fever, fatigue and joint pain on Tuesday, October 13. He was isolated at once, samples tested positive at two laboratories, and he was moved to a designated treatment centre for supportive care. The ministry said early detection improves his chances and reduces the risk to others, and that both cases are linked, with no evidence of spread in the wider community as of October 14.

The first patient was a Kenyan man who had been living in Congo, fell ill there about a month before travelling, crossed by road into Uganda despite the Congo and Uganda border being closed since May, flew to Nairobi on October 3, and died in hospital on October 5. That journey is the screening failure now under scrutiny across the region. Kenya, which had never recorded an Ebola case before this month, is the fourth country linked to Congo's outbreak, after Congo itself, Uganda and a case in a doctor who returned to France.

Tracing is the work in front of officials. Of 128 contacts identified from the first patient, 113 had been located by Tuesday, 108 of them in quarantine in Kenya and five outside the country, whose authorities have been notified. Tracing of the remaining 15 continues, as of October 14. The Congo outbreak behind all of this, declared in May and caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no approved vaccine, passed 9,000 confirmed cases and 4,381 deaths in figures reported here on October 14. Kenya has imposed no restrictions on travel, trade or public gatherings.