Man is Kenya's first reported death in epidemic that has killed more than 4,000 in Congo
By Caroline Kimeu in Nairobi, Kenya, and Nicholas Bariyo in Kampala, Uganda
A man who fell ill with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo transited three countries and boarded a commercial flight to Nairobi, where he died of the highly contagious virus, senior Kenyan health officials said Tuesday.
The death is Kenya's first reported fatality from Ebola's Bundibugyo strain, which has killed more than 4,000 people in eastern Congo in the past five months.
The victim, a Kenyan whose name wasn't released, was treated in Congo, where he had lived for several years. He then crossed neighboring Uganda by road, passed through the country's capital, Kampala, and took a Jambojet flight from Entebbe International Airport to Nairobi, the Kenyan officials said. He died in a Kenyan hospital on Monday night.
"We cannot afford to lower our guard," a senior Kenyan health official, Patrick Amoth, said Tuesday at a press conference announcing the death. "You cannot be able to put a wall between Uganda and D.R. Congo, between Kenya and Uganda, to prevent the entry of a pathogen, so we continue to maintain a heightened state of alert."
The death added a risky new twist to the epidemic, which has been advancing faster than any other Ebola outbreak on record. Kenya, a popular destination for travelers from the U.S., Asia and Europe, had until now dodged the deadly virus. And the World Health Organization had previously declared Uganda Ebola-free, status the victim's route could call into question.
Health officials in Uganda, which had 20 cases earlier in the epidemic, didn't respond to a request for comment.
News of the death in Kenya came the same day as researchers announced the launch of clinical field trials in Uganda on a potential Bundibugyo vaccine. It is the first to undergo clinical testing in Africa out of at least five vaccines under development.
"We urgently need a safe and effective vaccine that could help bring this crisis to an end," said Nicole Lurie, a senior official at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
The Serum Institute of India, a vaccine maker, has provided 3,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine for the new field tests, and says it has stockpiled more than 600,000 for wider deployment should the vaccine be approved.
CEPI, an Oslo-based consortium of governments, foundations, pharmaceutical companies and science organizations, is providing funds for five potential vaccines and hopes to secure approvals for at least two by year's end.
The patient who died in Nairobi was initially treated in hospitals in Congo. His final journey through three countries triggered concerns about the number of people he could have been in contact with along the way.
Nairobi, a city of nearly six million residents, is a major transit point for trade with landlocked East African economies, including Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, and serves as a hub for humanitarian organizations.
"What is important for us is to be able to pick [up] that disease when it arrives within our borders and ensure that we prevent community transmission," Amoth said.
The man submitted to standard airport health screening in Nairobi, and passed through immigration formalities, officials said. Officials said they suspect medication he was taking induced a false result, allowing his entry into the country.
Relatives and friends escorted him to a private hospital, where he was put in a separate room, Kenyan Health Minister Aden Duale told reporters. Doctors, aware the patient had been in Congo, moved him to an isolation ward -- a unit previously used for Covid-19 care -- after he displayed symptoms including fever, chills, intense fatigue, weakness, muscle pain, a sore throat and bleeding, Duale said.
He tested positive for Ebola and was to be buried Tuesday, in keeping with health protocols. The bodies of people killed by Ebola remain highly infectious, and have been a major source of contagion in Congo, according to the WHO.
Kenyan officials have identified at least 28 people who came into contact with the man, including family members and healthcare workers who attended to him, Duale said.
He said officials are trying to trace 27 passengers and crew members on the same Jambojet flight as the patient, and say they have made quarantine arrangements for those at risk.
Anyone suspected of exposure will be isolated at the 49-person isolation facility at a police hospital in Nairobi, and held for up to three weeks -- the maximum amount of time it takes for Ebola symptoms to appear, according to WHO. Those testing negative would be released, while infected patients would be moved to an Ebola treatment unit for care.
The health minister said authorities have reported the death to WHO, and would conduct intense screenings of incoming flights from countries known to have the virus.
"We have continued to maintain, as a country, a high level of alert for Ebola since the outbreak began in May," Duale said.
The Bundibugyo virus strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or cure, has infected more than 8,500 people in Congo, and is fatal in almost half of the cases.
Kenya has screened some 650,000 individuals for the deadly virus, trained nearly 5,000 health workers and set up isolation and care facilities around the country, Duale said.
The U.S. opened a field hospital on a Kenyan military base and designated it a quarantine-and-treatment facility for Americans exposed to Ebola, a move that sparked a brief series of public protests. Seven American aid workers were isolated at the facility in July after returning from Congo.
The U.S., which has pledged $13.5 million for Kenya's Ebola response, hasn't said whether non-Americans would be eligible for care at the field hospital.
Symptoms caused by the Bundibugyo strain develop at a slower pace than other strains, including the Zaire variant that killed 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, leaving infected patients strong enough to move and spread the virus, according to epidemiologists.
The health minister urged the public to seek care if unwell, and report anyone showing symptoms.
In the Uganda trial, the vaccine candidate, developed at the University of Oxford and first tested in the U.K., is being tested to check whether it is safe and triggers an immune response in healthy human volunteers. Later-stage trials would take place in areas with a known risk of Ebola infection.
The Uganda field testing is being conducted by the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Research Unit.
Three of CEPI's other vaccine candidates are from U.S.-based developers: biotech company Moderna, research nonprofit IAVI and vaccine developer Public Health Vaccines. One is from an Egypt-based pharmaceutical company Minapharm.