Ebola: All quarantined persons to be released by next week

Appearing before a delegated legislation committee on Ebola regulations, CS Duale stated that an inter-agency approach has maintained heightened response to prevent the spread of Ebola.

"We have done 100% contact tracing. All 135 people in contact with the imported case were traced," he said on Tuesday.

The CS maintained that the response has borne fruit and all contacts who were in quarantine will soon be released.

"We released 20 last Friday, we were left with 98, and we will release some today...Kenya should be globally appreciated and not condemned," he said.

He condemned Saudi Arabia's travel suspension of its citizens to Kenya and halting the issuance of visas to people arriving from the country.

Duale holds that the restriction is ill-founded and Kenya will protest the move until it is withdrawn.

"We might get something positive. The WHO has spoken on our behalf and [it] has said for us to contain this outbreak we should not close borders and restrict movement just put the necessary measures," he said.

Director-General for Health Dr. Patrick Amoth said that the Ministry will continue to release more contacts from quarantine, projecting to be complete next week.

"We will be releasing a significant number of those quarantined today. The few who will remain will continue to receive care and treatment under our multi-disciplinary team," he said.

"If all goes well by Tuesday next week, we will have released everyone in quarantine. We are confident that we are on the right trajectory."

Public Health Principal Secretary Mary Muthoni said authorities were progressively releasing people who had completed the mandatory monitoring period.

The first 20 contacts completed their 21-day monitoring period and were released on October 26, while another 46 were expected to leave quarantine on November 3.

All nine confirmed infections, among them one death, have been linked to a single cluster originating from Kenya’s first imported case.