Kenya has recorded a second death from Ebola, with nine confirmed cases, as the Kenya Red Cross trains its personnel in safe and dignified burial procedures to reduce the risk of further transmission.
The Kenya Red Cross said the handling and burial of bodies of Ebola victims remained a high-risk stage in containing the disease, prompting refresher training and practical simulations for its teams in Nairobi.
The Head of Public Health Emergencies at the Kenya Red Cross, Dr Paul Olale, said the organisation had been mandated to handle burials of Ebola victims.
“We are basically just trying to do some bit of simulations. In the country, we are the ones who have been delegated the mandate to handle burials of victims as a result of Ebola,” he said.
Olale explained that the exercises were intended to keep teams prepared to respond safely whenever a case arose.
“So we are just trying to refresh our teams on safe and dignified burial to ensure that the teams are always ready to undertake any case whenever they appear,” he said.
Kenya’s first case involved a man who travelled to Nairobi from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and died in the city on 5 October.
According to the Ministry of Health, the second victim was a 65-year-old woman who died on Friday. She was a close family member and direct contact of the first patient.
The ministry said it had traced 135 people who might have been in contact with the first victim and placed them in quarantine.
Olale said all nine confirmed cases were linked to the initial patient.
“The details are quite clear, that based on the chain from the index case, these are close relatives who interacted at one point or another with the index case,” he said.
He said no new cases had been reported outside Nairobi, while the remaining seven confirmed patients were receiving care in two isolation facilities.
More than 4,000 people have died in Africa since Ebola was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May, with the outbreak reported in four countries on the continent.
African News
