Kenya confirms a third Ebola case while transmission stays high in eastern Congo

Kenya has confirmed a third case of Ebola, bringing the number of infected people in the country to three, one of whom has died. UN News reported the figures on Saturday, October 17, citing the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is a UN agency and is helping Kenya respond, so it is both a source and a participant in this story.

The outbreak is of the Bundibugyo strain. According to WHO, the new patient was already in quarantine and was detected as soon as symptoms appeared. The sources do not give that patient's age, sex or relationship to the earlier cases. The first patient was a local man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He arrived in Nairobi via Uganda on 3 October and died two days later. On Friday, October 16, the WHO Representative in Kenya, Dr. Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, said a second case, a 39-year-old relative, had tested positive after developing symptoms on 13 October. She said health authorities “cast the net very wide” to find contacts, and that “we do not have community spread”.

Contact counts differed between the week's reports. The Friday report put contacts at more than 40. The Saturday report said health teams had identified 130 people, 127 of whom were in quarantine. The Friday report said efforts continued to reach six passengers with foreign phone numbers. The sources do not say whether they have been found, or where the second patient is being treated.

In the DRC, the Friday report gave WHO figures of 9 144 confirmed cases and 4 410 deaths, in seven provinces and 65 health zones. WHO called it the deadliest outbreak recorded in the country and said no lasting downward trend is emerging. The figures changed through the week. UN News, citing the latest WHO data on Thursday, October 15, gave 9,066 cases and 4,381 deaths. On Wednesday, October 14, UN News said authorities had reported 7 672 confirmed cases and 3 699 deaths. WHO said beds for suspected cases in North Kivu are almost full, and that vaccine stocks in Bas-Uélé are exhausted.

Cholera is spreading in the same country. On Thursday, WHO said more than 125,000 suspected cases and 3,644 suspected deaths were recorded between January 2025 and the end of September 2026. It said insecurity limits access for medical teams, particularly in Kibua and Masisi. All counts are of suspected cases, and the sources do not say how many were confirmed in a laboratory.

Fighting continues in the east. On Wednesday, Huang Xia, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region, told the Security Council that “Despite sustained diplomatic effort, the security and humanitarian situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has continued to worsen”. UN News said the country had more than 6 million displaced people at the end of June, and more than 26 million people faced acute food insecurity. The representative of the United States called the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity “a historic opportunity” and urged Kinshasa and Kigali to uphold the ceasefire. The sources report no vote or decision by the Council at that meeting.

The week left questions open. The sources contain no statement from Rwanda or from the AFC/M23 rebel group. They do not say whether Kenya's cases will spread beyond those in quarantine, and UN News reported that more cases could still turn up among contacts under observation. WHO says ending the Congo outbreak requires isolating cases quickly, following at least 95 percent of contacts and ensuring safe burials.