Ten Contacts of Kenya’s First Ebola Case Quarantined as Screening Doubts Mount

Ten individuals connected to Kenya’s first documented Ebola case have been placed under quarantine, intensifying concerns regarding the reliability of regional border screening measures.

In June, a United States plan to construct an Ebola treatment facility at a military base in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki provoked public fury over the risks of cross-border infection, leading to a court order halting the project.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Aden Duale told NTV that, pending the outcome of the legal battle, the government was considering repurposing the facility as the region’s first infectious disease hospital to manage outbreaks similar to Ebola.

More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo this year, marking the second most deadly known outbreak of the disease.

Shortly after the DRC declared an outbreak in May, cases were reported in Uganda, where two people died.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared those county areas free of the disease in August.

On Tuesday, Uganda’s health ministry emphasized that the country remained Ebola-free and was continuing to maintain strong surveillance measures to protect public health.

It stated that the Kenyan Ebola patient had transited through the country for less than 24 hours and that screening teams had observed a normal temperature at the time of departure.

According to the Africa CDC chief, his organization was working with all countries in the region to reinforce response mechanisms.

Kasiye said Kenya was “well prepared” and therefore able to immediately receive the case, “but it is not the case for all other countries”.

“It means the regional approach is more important today to stop this outbreak,” he said.

However, Kasiye said there was no quick testing available at border points and that taking temperatures was unreliable as medication is able to stop a fever.

“I have to make it clear – we don’t have diagnostics to test for Ebola. It’s just about temperature,” he said.

Dr. Miskellah, representing the Kenyan doctors’ union, said he was concerned that governments were relying on the “honesty and full co-operation of the travellers to self-declare, to say the truth” about their health, noting that a lack of proper health education to destigmatise the virus often leads people to hide their symptoms.

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