Kenya has recorded a second case of Ebola, about a week after confirming the first case of the virus in the country's history, the health ministry said, quoted by Reuters, BTA reports.
The new patient is a 39-year-old man, a close relative of the first infected person. He was already in quarantine when he showed symptoms of the disease yesterday, health authorities said.
The first case was identified in a Kenyan man living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The man died in a Nairobi hospital on October 5. He fell ill in Congo about a month before traveling by land to Uganda, from where he arrived by plane in the Kenyan capital on October 3. A relative took him to hospital.
The case has raised concerns about lapses in border health checks, as the patient managed to cross the Congo-Uganda border, which has been closed since May.
Kenya is the fourth country to report a case linked to the Ebola outbreak in Congo. It is the second-largest in the world so far, with more than 8,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths.
Earlier this year, Uganda reported 20 cases and two deaths, but in August it declared the country free of Ebola. In June, a doctor who returned to France from Congo also tested positive, without further spread of the virus.
Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, including those who have died. The disease can cause high fever, vomiting and diarrhea, and in severe cases, internal and external bleeding.
The outbreak in Congo was declared in mid-May, but may have started months earlier. It is caused by a rare variant of the virus known as Bundibugyo.