Kenya case sparks fears of spread amid Russian plague reports
Nairobi: The world’s attention over the past few days has been focused on Russia, where the death of a lab worker in Siberia has prompted global concerns about pneumonic plague.
But in Africa, deadly Ebola is crossing borders and triggering a contact-tracing scramble amid fears that the highly contagious virus is now spreading via air travel.
Kenya’s first Ebola case – a patient who travelled for weeks by road and air through three countries without being detected until he arrived in Nairobi – has raised questions about border control and how to trace the virus across countries.
The patient, a Kenyan man, had been living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) – where the disease has killed more than 4000 people – for seven years. He started feeling ill a month ago.
He had travelled by road to Uganda, before boarding a flight – operated by the budget African airline Jambojet – to the Kenyan capital on Saturday. There, he tested positive for Ebola in a hospital; he died on Monday.
The short period between the flight and his death means the journey took place in the final days of infection, the stage at which patients who die of the disease are most contagious, London’s Telegraph reported.
Ebola is highly contagious and spreads in the human population through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and via contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing.
An aeroplane cabin can increase the risks because passengers share cramped spaces for prolonged periods and touch the same surfaces, such as in bathrooms.
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director-general Jean Kaseya said all stakeholders needed to ask themselves how one case could have driven and flown to so many places without anyone noticing.
“We need to ensure that at point of entry, we have a strong surveillance system in place,” he said.
Officials are trying to trace everyone who came into contact with the patient
The Kenyan man drove for hours by road within the DR Congo and across the border into Uganda. He boarded a local flight while in DR Congo, but it is unclear if he used any other forms of public transport.
Authorities have looked at the flight manifest of the other flight he took from Kampala in Uganda to Nairobi, and passengers and crew onboard have been added to the contact list.
They’re also looking to trace workers who cleaned the plane after it landed, as well as passengers who travelled on the same plane subsequently.
Kenya’s Health Minister Aden Duale said contact tracing was ongoing and that the number of contacts had risen to 57, with 10 already quarantined.
“Even the people who cleaned that aircraft after it landed on Saturday, they are part of the people we are tracing. The immigration and the customs officials who served that patient will also be part of the contact tracing,” he said.
Africa CDC’s Kaseya acknowledged it was a challenge. He said that the Kenyan man had not come up in existing contact lists in DR Congo.
Questions raised about how the patient travelled through Uganda
It’s also unclear how the patient was able to cross into Uganda, which has closed its border with DR Congo because of the Ebola outbreak.
Alan Kasujja, executive director of the Ugandan government’s media centre, dismissed the question, saying only that journalists should instead ask Kenya how the man could bypass surveillance at its airport.
“Leave Uganda out of this conversation. We don’t have Ebola here,” he wrote on X.
Two of the man’s journeys were by air, while the rest were by road, covering long distances and passing through various towns and cities. On arrival in Nairobi, the patient underwent port health screening, but his symptoms were not detected. He then boarded a private vehicle to Nairobi Hospital, where he was isolated and later tested positive for Ebola.
When asked how the patient was able to travel through three countries undetected, Kenya’s director-general for health, Patrick Amoth, said on Wednesday that a meeting was scheduled with officials from DR Congo, Uganda and the Africa CDC to investigate what transpired during the patient’s journey.
Kenya’s Health Ministry has heightened surveillance at border entry points and created an Ebola hotline for citizens to report symptoms related to Ebola.
The ministry said the country has enough supplies, including personal protective equipment, and has mobilised resources since the outbreak started in May in DR Congo.
It has also designated a specific gate at the country’s main airport for passengers travelling from 10 countries located within the outbreak’s epicentre.
What’s the latest on the DR Congo outbreak?
The outbreak in DR Congo is creating new hot spots where there’s little to no support for patients, responders and officials say, as health workers admit there could still be a long way to go in the fight against the virus.
More than 70 per cent of new cases are still coming from outside of known contacts and at least 60 per cent of deaths are outside of treatment centres, Kaseya said. “There are so many other people who are becoming sick, who are not tested, treated, or listed.”
DR Congo has recorded more than 8500 cases, according to government data, making it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record and the country’s deadliest.
And what is actually happening with the ‘plague’ in Russia?
A top official with the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday it did not know how a lab worker in Siberia died and urged Russia to provide further information about a case that has prompted global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of epidemic and pandemic management, said the UN health agency did not have any information on the “causative agent” that was behind the woman’s death on October 2. Unconfirmed reports in Russia blamed the death on pneumonic plague – a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person.
In its tersely worded statements, Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, did not link the case to pneumonic plague, saying only that the lab worker had contracted pneumonia of “unknown” origin and that “extensive” testing found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.
“We don’t understand how she was infected,” Van Kerkhove said. “We need information in a timely way. We need regular information. We need answers to the follow-up of the questions that we have asked.”
The comments suggested the UN health agency has more questions than answers about the situation at the lab, which focuses on plague and was founded about a century ago to study the disease in Siberia, where it occurs naturally in wild animals.
Russian authorities have kept a tight lid on information about the case.
In response to some of the criticism, Russian authorities on Wednesday said the lab worker had been vaccinated against the disease and that no “emergency situations” had been identified at the lab, the New York Times reported.
Pneumonic plague results from breathing in the bacteria, causing an infection in the lungs. The bacterium, called Yersinia pestis, has not been eliminated, but it is not spread very easily and is treatable with antibiotics.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has plans to discuss the situation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asked if the incident was a sign that plague might be developed as a bioweapon, Trump said, “We don’t think so. We’re going to find out soon enough, but we don’t think so.”
With AP
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
Paul Dyer works on the foreign desk for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.