Kenya reports second Ebola death as Nigeria investigates first case

Kenya has reported a second Ebola death, while health officials investigate whether the country’s first patient crossed paths with a woman who later became Nigeria’s first confirmed case in the current outbreak.

Kenya’s Ministry of Health said Friday that a 65-year-old woman died after developing symptoms during quarantine. She was a close relative of the first Kenyan patient, a man who had travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo through Uganda to Kenya and died at a Nairobi hospital on October 5.

Kenya has confirmed nine cases, including the two deaths. Seven patients are receiving treatment at two isolation facilities, and authorities have traced and quarantined 135 contacts, Al Jazeera reported. The ministry said all the cases belong to “one cluster, with no evidence of community spread.”

Nigeria announced its first Ebola case in more than a decade on Tuesday. The patient is the Ugandan-born wife of a diplomat based in Abuja, Nigerian health authorities said. She vacationed in Uganda in September and returned to Nigeria earlier this month, according to NPR. She is being treated, and 44 people who had close contact with her have been quarantined.

The first Kenyan patient and the Nigerian patient were at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on the same day. Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness and response at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday that officials were investigating whether there had been “some sort of interaction between the two cases at the airport.” Authorities have not established how the Nigerian patient was exposed.

Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said Friday that an analysis showed the virus in Nigeria’s case was closely related to the virus detected in Kenya’s first case, Al Jazeera reported.

The outbreak began in eastern Congo in May. At least 4,600 people have died there. NPR reported about 9,700 infections, while Al Jazeera reported more than 9,000 cases. NPR described it as the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record.

Cases in Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria have given the outbreak the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date, according to Al Jazeera. Nigeria is the first West African country to report a case in the current outbreak and the furthest from the epicenter in Congo, NPR reported.

Uganda recorded about 20 infections before it was declared Ebola-free in August. Al Jazeera reported that two people died there and that Uganda subsequently announced travellers with a history of travel to Congo would not be allowed to transit through the country.

Ebola spreads through direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids or contaminated items. It causes severe fever and can be deadly, though people generally are not considered infectious until they develop symptoms.