Kenyan authorities have detected an eighth case of Ebola in the country, a health ministry official said.
The latest case involves a 49-year-old man who had symptoms including fever, high temperature, headaches and muscle pain, health ministry director Patrick Amoth said in an interview with Citizen TV late Sunday.
“Today we tested 38 persons; one turned positive,” he said, adding that the man had been in quarantine since October 9.
The man was a support staff member at a health facility, handling tasks such as laundry, Amoth said. He was likely exposed to the virus in the room of the first Kenyan patient.
Kenya reported its first Ebola case on October 6. The patient was a businessman in his forties who had lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a major outbreak has been ongoing since May.
He travelled by car and plane via Uganda to Kenya, where he died on October 5.
The other seven cases in Kenya have involved relatives of the first patient or health workers who treated him. Amoth said they were in stable condition.
Neighbouring Uganda recorded 20 cases, almost all imported from the DRC, and two deaths before declaring the end of the outbreak within its borders in August.
Kenyan health authorities reported last week that they had identified 130 contacts, 128 of whom had been traced and placed in quarantine.
