A second confirmed case of the virus has been reported in Kenya, with the health ministry stating on Wednesday that available evidence points to no widespread person-to-person transmission at this stage.

A man who had been residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo before travelling back to Kenya became the nation's first recorded fatality linked to Ebola, with his death confirmed over the past week. The individual held Kenyan nationality, was approximately 40 years of age, and worked in business, though his identity has not been made public.

Symptoms appeared roughly a month before his departure from the DRC, and after receiving treatment there, he travelled overland to Kampala before boarding a flight that brought him into Nairobi on 3 October. Treatment in a Nairobi hospital preceded his death on 5 October, a date confirmed through a statement from Health Minister Aden Duale. No instance of the illness had ever previously been recorded within Kenya's borders.

The DRC's health ministry confirmed a second Ebola infection in the country's 17th outbreak of the disease, identified in May. The newly diagnosed patient, a 39-year-old man with close family ties to the first recorded case, had already been placed under quarantine and health surveillance before the virus was detected in him. Across Africa over the past five decades, the disease has claimed more than 15,000 lives.

Placed in isolation as soon as fever, fatigue, and joint pain appeared, the patient subsequently tested positive for the virus, according to the ministry, which added that he was receiving supportive care from trained staff at a designated treatment facility. By Tuesday, 113 of the 128 contacts linked to the first case had been located.

The ministry's statement noted that detecting the virus at an early stage reduces the likelihood of transmission to other people, and that no evidence had emerged of spread beyond known cases into the broader population.

Of the 108 people placed under quarantine domestically, a further five were traced to locations abroad, with health authorities in the relevant countries having been alerted. Tracing the whereabouts of the remaining 15 is a task that authorities have yet to complete.

In Uganda, 20 cases were confirmed — nearly all among people who had entered from the DRC — along with two fatalities, after which health authorities declared the country free of the disease in August.

Health authorities in the DRC have recorded 9,066 cases and 4,381 fatalities linked to the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a variant against which neither an approved vaccine nor a targeted therapy has yet been developed.