Kenya has confirmed its eighth Ebola case, with a hospital support worker testing positive after being quarantined for more than a week.
Health ministry director Patrick Amoth said the 49-year-old man had symptoms including fever, headaches and muscle pain.
Speaking to Citizen TV on Sunday, Amoth said 38 people were tested, with one returning a positive result. The patient had been in quarantine since October 9.
The man worked at a health facility, handling duties such as laundry, and was believed to have been exposed to the virus in the room used by Kenya’s first Ebola patient.
Kenya reported its first case on October 6 involving a businessman in his forties who had lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a major outbreak has been ongoing since May. He travelled to Kenya by road and air through Uganda and died on October 5.
The seven other cases recorded in Kenya involved relatives of the first patient or health workers who treated him. Amoth said they were all in stable condition.
Kenyan health authorities said last week that they had identified 130 contacts linked to the outbreak, with 128 traced and placed in quarantine.
Neighbouring Uganda recorded 20 cases, mostly linked to infections imported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and two deaths before declaring the end of its outbreak in August.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epidemic has exceeded 9,000 cases, with 4,381 deaths, according to the country’s health authorities.
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