On Monday Kenya declared a high Ebola alert in provinces that border Uganda, after an outbreak of the disease was confirmed in Kampala.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 2 – A suspected case of Ebola in Siaya district turned out negative on Thursday, providing a sigh of relief for Kenya despite news that another man had recorded similar symptoms, hundreds of kilometers away in Eldoret.
The 30-year-old man was on Thursday admitted to the Eldoret Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital with symptom similar to those of the haemorrhagic fever.
According to the hospital acting Director Dr John Kibosia, the patient who travelled from Sudan passed through Uganda before coming to Kenya, has been put in an isolation ward together with two of his relatives whom he came in contact with.
“He was bleeding and passing stool with blood and this combination is what we think can easily be one of the haemorrhagic fever,” he asserted.
Dr Kibosia told journalists in Eldoret that his blood samples have been sent to the Kenya Medical Research Institute laboratories to ascertain if the man is suffering from the deadly virus.
Dr Kibosia added that the hospital had taken precautionary measures to handle Ebola related illnesses.
This is the second case feared in Kenya after a man exhibiting signs of the disease was put in a solitary ward at the Siaya district hospital on Wednesday. However his laboratory tests returned negative.
The disease broke out in Uganda earlier this week killing 16 people.
On Monday Kenya declared a high Ebola alert in provinces that border Uganda, after an outbreak of the disease was confirmed in Kampala.
The Head of Disease Prevention and Control at the Ministry of Public Health Willis Akhwale said they had instructed Provincial Directors of Health and District Medical Officers in Western, Nyanza and Rift Valley provinces to immediately report any suspicious cases.
Meanwhile the Director of Public Health Dr Shahnaz Sharif said Kenya would not advise its citizens against traveling to Uganda following the outbreak.
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni on Monday warned against any form of physical contact after victims were reported in the capital Kampala for the first time.
There is no known treatment or vaccine for Ebola, which is transmitted through close personal contact. It kills up to 90 percent of victims.
Its initial symptoms include persistent fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat which is usually followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes on the body as well as external bleeding.
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