Kenya starts a 42-day countdown to declaring its Ebola outbreak over after its last patient goes home

Kenya began a 42-day countdown to the end of its Ebola outbreak on Thursday, a day after its last patient went home and 11 people were released from quarantine, according to UN News.  If no new case is found, Kenya will be declared free of Ebola on Dec. 23.

Ebola disease is a rare but severe and often deadly illness caused by a small group of viruses, according to the World Health Organization. It spreads through direct contact with the blood or other body fluids of a person who is sick with it or has died of it, or with objects soiled by those fluids, and people cannot pass it on before they have symptoms. Symptoms show up 2 to 21 days after infection and start suddenly with fever, tiredness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. About half of people who get Ebola die, on average, though that share has ranged from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. Approved vaccines and treatments exist for only one of the viruses, not for the Bundibugyo virus behind Kenya’s outbreak, the WHO says.

“Forty-two days is twice the longest incubation period of the virus,” said Aden Duale, Kenya’s Cabinet secretary for health.  The incubation period is the time between infection and the first symptoms.

Kenya confirmed its first case Oct. 6, a man who had traveled home from the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Uganda and died at a Nairobi hospital.  Health workers traced all 135 of his close contacts.  Eight more people tested positive:  four relatives and four health workers who treated him.  All were already in quarantine, so the virus did not spread in the community.  Seven patients recovered and two people died, the World Health Organization said.

The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which is linked to a continuing outbreak in Congo.  The WHO urged Kenya to keep up screening and testing.

Source: UN News, Nov. 12, 2026; World Health Organization, Ebola disease fact sheet.