NAIROBI, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Kenya has confirmed a new Ebola case, bringing the total number of infections to nine, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry said the latest case was a close family member of the first patient and had already been placed in quarantine.
“All nine cases belong to one cluster, and as of today there is no evidence of transmission outside this group,” Director-General for Health Patrick Amoth said in a statement.
Kenya has been on high alert as a major Ebola outbreak centred in Democratic Republic of Congo has spread across borders in the region.
Kenya’s first Ebola case was identified earlier this month in a man who travelled from DRC to Nairobi and died at a Nairobi hospital on October 5.
Late on Monday, the US State Department advised Americans to reconsider travel to Kenya and raised its travel advisory level for the country because of health risks.
Amoth said 134 of 135 contacts had been traced and placed in quarantine as of Tuesday.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa and Edwin Okoth. Editing by Mark Potter)
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