Kenya confirms first Ebola case as virus ‘surges’ in DR Congo province

Volunteer health workers at an Ebola emergency response training session conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières in Ongata Rongai, Kenya, in August. Photograph: Daniel Irungu/EPA

Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, as the disease continues to spread rapidly through the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was announced in May.

This is the 17th outbreak of the highly infectious, often deadly disease in the DRC. As of 2 October, 4,082 people had died out of 8,463 confirmed cases in the country since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still no vaccine nor specific treatment.