Kenya Begins 42-Day Countdown to Ebola-Free Status After Last Patient is Discharged

Kenya has begun a 42-day countdown toward being declared free of Ebola after its last patient was discharged from hospital and 11 people were released from quarantine.

The countdown began Thursday, a day after the patient went home. If no new cases are recorded, Kenya could be declared free of Bundibugyo virus disease on 23 December, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said. The 42-day period is twice the virus’s longest known incubation period.

Kenya confirmed its first case on October 6. The patient, a Kenyan man, had travelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Uganda and arrived in Nairobi by air on 3 October. He later died at a Nairobi hospital.

Contact tracing identified 135 people who had been in close contact with him in Kenya and abroad. Eight more people tested positive: four family members and four health workers who had cared for him before Ebola was suspected. All were already in quarantine when they became ill, and the virus did not spread beyond the cluster.

Kenya recorded nine cases in total.   According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), seven of the patients recovered, and two died. The last case was confirmed on 19 October, and no new cases have been reported since.

The WHO congratulated Kenya on the milestone but urged authorities to remain vigilant by continuing disease surveillance, screening patients at health facilities, strengthening laboratory capacity and keeping health workers prepared to respond quickly to any new cases.

“The countdown is not the end of our response,” Duale said. Rapid-response teams will remain on alert, he added, and every report of a possible case will be investigated. Survivors will continue to receive follow-up care and support.