Alert after truck driver exhibits Ebola symptoms

By Ngumbao Kithi and Kevin Odit

A truck driver who recently returned from Uganda has been indisposed and medical practitioners are investigating if he has contracted ebola hemorrhagic fever.

Friday evening the Coast Provincial Public Health Officer Anisa Omar confirmed an unnamed patient who was bleeding from several orifices had been taken to a private hospital in Mombasa.

She told the Press patient returned from Uganda on August 3 and sought treatment after developing the symptoms.

Samples taken from him are being tested at the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi.

The patient has been admitted and segregated at the private Aga Khan Hospital in Mombasa together with four other people, all Kenyan, including a nurse who came in close contact with him at the institution when he came to seek treatment.

Medical authorities have been on the alert following the eruption of the fever in Uganda because thousands of Ugandans and Kenya live and gravel between the two East African nations.

There is no consensus about the patient’s nationality because some accounts in the Public Health ministry said the man is a Ugandan visiting Kenya.

The director of medical services, Dr Shahnaz Sharrif confirmed the hospital had taken samples to Nairobi for verification.


 

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