Ebola: African Union offers support to Kenya after cases rise to 7

A african Union (AU) public health agency announced sending technical and logistical support to strengthen Kenya’s response to the Ebola outbreak after confirmation of four new cases.

With these four new cases, it raises to seven the total number of infections registered in Kenya, resulting from a case imported from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo).

In a statement released this Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Africa (CDC) reported that they are collaborating with the Kenyan Government in key areas of emergency, with particular attention to “epidemiological surveillance, technical coordination, risk reporting and community involvement”.

The continental health body emphasized the need to provide protective equipment to health professionals working in the front line, after confirming that three of the four new infected professionals are health professionals who attended the “zero patient” in the hospital.

The CDCs in Africa highlighted the priority of strengthening infection prevention and control measures, ensuring “adequate protective equipment, training and continuous support” for health workers.

In view of the evolution of the epidemic in DRCongo, the origin of the first case detected in Kenya, the body reaffirmed that it will intensify cross-border surveillance and early detection between Member States in order to contain the spread of the virus at regional level.

For its part, the Kenyan Ministry of Health stated in a document that the risk to the general public remains low, “since there is no evidence of community transmission of the disease.”.

Of the 130 people who had contact with “zero patient”, 128 (98.5%) were screened and quarantined, which surpasses the overall reference of 85% for tracking contacts, a rate required to break the disease transmission chain.

Kenya confirmed, on October 5, its first case imported from Ebola: a 40-year-old man who has lived in DRCongo for the past seven years.

The “zero patient” received treatment in several Congolese hospitals before traveling by land to Kampala and later flying from Uganda to Nairobi, where he landed on October 3, dying two days later.

Since then, health authorities have started tracking contacts to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus during the patient's displacement and treatment.

Kenya is the fourth country to record a case linked to the Ebola epidemic in the DRC, joining Uganda, France and the Netherlands.

Ebola also spread to Uganda, where the World Health Organization (WHO) declared, on August 26, the end of the outbreak, after accounting for 20 confirmed cases, including 15 imported from DRC, and two deaths.

The RDC epidemic is the second most lethal in global history, causing 9,277 confirmed cases, including 4,478 deaths, according to the last balance sheet of the Congolese government.