Kenya has confirmed its first Ebola case after a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo died in a Nairobi hospital, health authorities announced Tuesday.
The patient, a Kenyan national who had resided in eastern DRC for seven years, fell ill about a month earlier and was treated at several hospitals there, according to Health Secretary Aden Duale. On October 2, he traveled by road from DRC to Kampala, Uganda, then flew to Nairobi on October 3 on a Jambojet flight from Entebbe, landing at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at around 1:10 p.m.
He passed through airport health screening, where officials said his temperature appeared normal, and was later taken by a relative to Nairobi Hospital. At the hospital he presented with fever, chills and bleeding under the skin, was quickly isolated, and tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. He died late on Monday, October 5, at about 11:30 p.m. local time, and was buried the next day under strict infection-control protocols.
Kenyan authorities say 29 people have been identified as close contacts so far, including eight family members and 21 healthcare workers, all of whom are quarantined and under 21-day monitoring. Health teams are also working to trace 23 passengers and four crew members who were on the same flight from Entebbe.
Duale said Kenya has trained nearly 5,000 health workers nationwide on Ebola prevention and management, and the UN’s senior Ebola coordinator told Reuters he expected a “solid health response” from Kenya. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said it was immediately deploying a high-level support team to Nairobi, stressing that the case “underscores the importance of sustained preparedness across the region.”
Kenya’s health ministry director-general, Patrick Amoth, said the patient might have cleared airport screening because medication could have masked his symptoms. Ugandan health authorities added that screening teams at Entebbe airport recorded a normal temperature for the traveler. It remains unclear how he crossed from DRC into Uganda, given that the border has been officially closed since May; Africa CDC noted he spent one night in Uganda before flying to Kenya. When asked about Uganda’s role, government spokesperson Alan Kasujja replied by text: “Leave Uganda out of this conversation … We don’t have Ebola here.”
The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X that WHO is supporting both Kenyan and Ugandan authorities and recommended against imposing travel restrictions on affected countries.
Kenya is the fourth country to report a case linked to the ongoing eastern DRC outbreak, which is now the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record with more than 8,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths. Earlier this year, Uganda recorded 20 cases and two deaths before being declared Ebola-free in August, while a single imported case was detected in France in June with no further spread.
The DRC outbreak, declared in mid-May but likely starting months earlier, is caused by the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus. Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected people, whether living or dead, and can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhea and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding.
After the DRC outbreak was declared, the United States built a 50-bed Ebola quarantine facility for its citizens on a Kenyan air force base; the camp has so far housed only seven people and remains empty. Kenyan officials have suggested it could also accept Kenyans and other nationalities, though the U.S. has not confirmed that.
