Kenya has discharged its last Ebola patient, starting a 42-day countdown that could see the country declared free of the disease on 23 December 2026. Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale announced the milestone on Wednesday, telling reporters that Kenya now has no active Ebola cases.

The final 11 people who had been in quarantine as contacts of confirmed cases were also released on Wednesday. The countdown begins on Thursday 12 November, and Kenya will be declared Ebola-free if no new infections are recorded during the 42-day observation period, which is twice the virus's maximum incubation period.

Nine cases since early October

Kenya has recorded nine Ebola cases since early October, when a Kenyan man tested positive for the disease and died after arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a large outbreak was declared in May. All the other cases were contacts of that first patient. Two of the nine patients died and seven recovered, according to the health ministry.

No new infections have been recorded in Kenya since 19 October, the ministry told a press conference. Duale made the announcement while speaking at the inaugural Africa Health Data Forum in Nairobi, where he said active surveillance would continue at health facilities and points of entry across the country throughout the countdown.

"On Thursday, November 12, 2026, marks day one of the 42-day countdown to the end of the Ebola outbreak in Kenya. If no new case is reported in that period, Kenya will be declared free of Ebola on December 23, 2026," Duale said. He cautioned that the threat of imported infections remained real, particularly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak continues.

Quarantine for arrivals from Congo

Kenya will now require citizens arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo to undergo a 21-day quarantine, Duale said, as part of measures to guard against the virus being carried back across the border.

The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the second-largest on record, with more than 11,000 cases confirmed. Ebola has been reported in four countries across eastern, central and western Africa in this outbreak, the widest geographic spread of any outbreak on the continent to date, underlining why Kenyan health officials are keeping surveillance in place even as the domestic caseload reaches zero.

For Kenya, the discharge of the last patient closes a tense five-week episode that began with a single imported case and tested the country's contact-tracing system. The next six weeks will decide whether the country can formally close the outbreak before Christmas.