Kenya began a countdown on Wednesday to declare the end of its Ebola outbreak.
The final patient who had tested positive for the virus was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday. And the Kenyan cabinet secretary for health, Aden Duale, said at a news conference that the last 11 people being monitored for Ebola symptoms had also been discharged after completing a 21-day quarantine period.
“For the first time since this outbreak began, Kenya has no patient under treatment and no contact in quarantine,” he said.
The milestone is further evidence that countries have succeeded in containing the small number of cases, most coming in from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak continues to spread.
Since Kenya announced its first-ever Ebola case on Oct. 6, two people have died and nine have tested positive in the country. The initial case was a Kenyan man who returned from Congo and infected others before the virus was diagnosed and he was put in isolation. He died days later.
The Kenyan authorities say that all of those who subsequently became ill were in quarantine before they developed symptoms and became infectious. As a result, there have been no instances of what experts call community transmission, when a person passes on the virus outside a medical setting.
Kenya’s outbreak will be officially declared over on Dec. 23, or 42 days from when the last case was recorded, if there are no further positive Ebola tests, the health secretary said. In all, 135 people have been monitored for signs of the virus.
The current Ebola outbreak has killed more than 5,300 people since it was first declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization in May. But so far, the fear that the epidemic might spread unchecked across Africa has not materialized.
Uganda has recorded 20 cases and three deaths, but the outbreak was declared over in the country by August. The authorities in Nigeria last month identified a case in the capital, Abuja.
Individuals with Ebola have since been medically evacuated to several European countries. Two Americans who worked for humanitarian organizations involved in the Ebola response have also tested positive. Both were treated outside of the United States and have recovered.
Several countries have instituted travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instituted a requirement in November that anyone traveling by air into the United States must sign a document confirming that they have not been in Congo in the past 21 days before boarding their flight.
Kenya has also announced new rules for its citizens returning from Congo, including 21 days of quarantine and monitoring, Mr. Duale said. He gave no details of whether the quarantine would take place at home or in a medical facility.
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