Kenya’s health authorities confirmed on Wednesday that the country no longer has a single Ebola patient under treatment or a contact in quarantine, after the final person receiving care for Bundibugyo virus disease was discharged from a Nairobi facility. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, speaking at the ministry’s Afya House headquarters, said the patient had left hospital healthy and virus-free, and that the last 11 people who had been monitored for exposure had also completed their follow-up in good health.
The announcement sets in motion a 42-day waiting period that, if it passes without a new infection, would allow Kenya to be formally declared free of Ebola on December 23, 2026. The countdown began on Thursday, November 12, and covers twice the maximum incubation period of the virus.
- Key Point: Kenya recorded nine confirmed Ebola cases in total, including the first patient who arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo, four of his family members and four health workers who treated him before the disease was suspected.
- Key Point: Seven patients recovered and two died, among them the first imported case and a 65-year-old close relative.
- Key Point: All 135 people identified as contacts were traced and monitored, and no community transmission was recorded.
- Key Point: The last confirmed infection was reported on October 19, and no new case has emerged since.
How a single imported case was contained
Kenya’s outbreak traces back to early October, when a Kenyan national returned home from the Democratic Republic of Congo by way of Uganda, fell ill and later died after testing positive for the Bundibugyo strain. The government notified the World Health Organization on October 6, within a day of laboratory confirmation.
Contact tracing teams moved quickly, locating all 135 people who had been in close contact with the first patient, both inside Kenya and abroad. Those at risk were placed in quarantine and monitored daily by health workers. In the days that followed, eight more people tested positive: four relatives and four medics who had cared for the man before Ebola was suspected.
Because every secondary case was already in isolation when symptoms appeared, the virus never reached the wider population. Duale described that fact as decisive, saying it meant the pathogen had nowhere to spread. The health ministry said in a statement that all nine confirmed cases belonged to a single transmission chain.
“For the first time since this outbreak began, Kenya has no patient under treatment and no contact in quarantine,” Duale said.
Five patients were discharged on November 3, the first Kenyans ever to recover from the disease, and a sixth followed on November 6. With the final discharge, seven people have now recovered.
Treatment without a licensed vaccine
Director-General for Health Patrick Amoth said the country had no specific vaccine or licensed therapeutic for the Bundibugyo species, and that clinicians relied on a combination approach. Patients received MBP-134, a monoclonal antibody administered as a single infusion, followed by a 10-day course of the antiviral Remdesivir, along with supportive care such as nutrition, blood transfusions and ventilatory support where needed.
Kenyatta National Hospital and The Nairobi Hospital cared for the patients, while county governments, particularly in Nairobi and along the borders, backed the response. Duale credited doctors, nurses, laboratory teams, contact tracers and support staff, noting that four health workers had been infected in the line of duty.
“This is not the victory of one person or one institution,” he said.
The World Health Organization’s director for programme management at its Africa regional office, Abdourahmane Diallo, praised Kenya’s transparency and speed, saying rapid detection, isolation, contact tracing, laboratory confirmation and community engagement had limited the spread. He also cautioned that the virus can persist in bodily fluids after recovery, and recalled that Guinea had seen a resurgence after previously celebrating the end of an outbreak.
“Today’s event is a moment of cautious celebration. It is not the end of our work,” Diallo said.
Regional outbreak still raging as Nairobi pushes back on travel curbs
The milestone comes as the epidemic that seeded Kenya’s cases continues to expand in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congolese authorities reported 11,042 infections and 5,387 deaths on Wednesday, making the outbreak, which began in May, the deadliest on record for the country. The virus has also reached Uganda, Nigeria and France.
Duale said the risk of further imported cases remains real and that surveillance, screening at points of entry and rapid response teams will stay in place throughout the countdown. The foreign and health ministries will issue guidance for Kenyans returning from affected areas, including health declarations and follow-up by health teams.
The minister also used the briefing to press countries that imposed blanket travel and visa restrictions on Kenyans to lift them, pointing out that Kenya has no active patients, no quarantined contacts and no documented community spread. He said Nairobi would not act as a quarantine centre for other nations and would not issue Ebola-free certificates for travel, adding that Kenya remains open to tourism, trade and travel with no internal movement restrictions.
Authorities urged anyone with fever, weakness, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea or unexplained bleeding, especially after travel to an affected area, to seek care early through the free 719 hotline. Duale said a detailed account of response spending and partner support, including roughly $14.5 million committed by the United States through implementing partners, would be published after the countdown ends.
The next six weeks will test whether Kenya’s containment holds. A single missed contact or undetected infection would restart the clock, and the continuing surge in Congo means the border remains the most exposed point. For now, officials frame the period as a final stretch rather than a finish, with rapid response teams on alert in every county and survivors scheduled for continued follow-up care.