Kenya has discharged five Ebola patients after consecutive laboratory tests confirmed they successfully cleared the virus, leaving just two active cases under isolation, health authorities confirmed Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health disclosed in an official statement that the recovered male patients (two treated at Kenyatta National Hospital and three at The Nairobi Hospital) met strict discharge criteria after testing negative 48 hours apart.
The ministry noted that all discharged individuals cleared their symptoms completely before release. Two remaining infected patients continue to receive specialized care within isolation facilities in Nairobi.
Kenya has recorded nine confirmed cases of the Bundibugyo virus disease and two deaths since early October, with zero new infections reported since October 19.
Authorities have successfully confined the outbreak to a single transmission chain linked directly to an index patient who arrived in Kenya after traveling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Rigorous contact tracing strategies have prevented wider community spread, allowing officials to place all exposed individuals into structured monitoring. Alongside the recoveries, 46 contacts were released from quarantine Tuesday.
This latest discharge follows 20 contacts cleared on October 26. The remaining 52 monitored contacts are expected to finish their compulsory 21-day quarantine period by November 11.
The current outbreak represents the widest geographic spread of Ebola on record, with cases linked to the DRC epidemic spreading across four nations in central, eastern, and western Africa.
The DRC outbreak has produced over 10,500 confirmed cases and 5,100 deaths since mid-May, intensifying cross-border surveillance efforts across neighboring East African states.
Health officials confirmed that once the final two hospitalized patients test negative and exit isolation, Kenya will initiate the mandatory 42-day countdown required to officially declare the outbreak over.
