NAIROBI, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Kenya has recorded a second Ebola death, the health ministry said late on Friday, adding that the 65-year-old woman had developed symptoms during quarantine and was a close relative of a Kenyan man who died of Ebola earlier this month.
The outbreak, which started in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has now been reported in four countries across eastern, central and western Africa, giving it the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date.
Kenya’s first Ebola case was identified this month in a man who travelled from Congo to Nairobi and died at a Nairobi hospital on October 5.
Since then, Kenyan authorities have traced 135 contacts, all of whom were placed in quarantine, with nine cases confirmed.
The Ebola victim who died on Friday evening was a direct contact of the index patient, the ministry said.
“This loss brings the number of deaths to two among the nine confirmed cases. The remaining seven patients continue to receive care in the two isolation facilities,” the ministry said, adding there was no evidence of community spread in the country.
Late on Monday, the US State Department advised Americans to reconsider travel to Kenya and raised its travel advisory level for the country because of health risks.
On Tuesday, Nigeria became the fourth African country to report an Ebola case, with officials scrambling to work out how and where the patient, who had not travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, contracted the disease.
Ebola has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 4,600 in Congo. The disease can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding. Only people with symptoms can transmit the virus.
The rare Ebola species behind the current outbreak has no approved treatment or vaccine.
(Reporting by Vincent Mumo Nzilani; writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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