17 Oct (Reuters) – Kenya confirmed this Saturday four new cases of Bundibugyo Ebola virus, including three health workers who treated the country’s first patient, raising the total number of confirmed cases to seven, the Ministry of Health said.
The other new case is a male relative of the index patient, who died. The relative has been in quarantine since October 6, the ministry said in a statement.
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These are the first known infections transmitted within Kenya, where the first patient arrived from Congo on October 3. However, the ministry says it has traced and quarantined almost all of its contacts, and there is no evidence that the virus is spreading in the community.
The three health workers — two men and a woman aged 29, 35 and 32 respectively — treated the index case on October 3 and 4 and had been in quarantine since October 9, the ministry said. All four new patients were already in quarantine when they developed symptoms and were diagnosed.
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The second and third patients, previously confirmed, are stable and responding well to supportive treatment, the ministry said. The agency noted that 128 of the 130 contacts listed, or 98.5%, had been traced and placed in quarantine, a rate higher than the global target of 85% considered necessary to interrupt the transmission chain.
The cases in Kenya are linked to the Ebola outbreak in Congo — the second-largest outbreak on record, with more than 9,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths.
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There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru, and Colleen Goko in Johannesburg)
