Kenya has confirmed an eighth Ebola case as Congo’s outbreak reaches an eighth province, while the measles toll in Bangladesh nears 1,200. South Africa has recorded four more mpox cases, and a large study links GLP-1 diabetes and weight-loss drugs with slightly fewer complications after planned surgery.
Kenya’s Ebola cases rise to eight as a hospital attendant tests positive
Kenya has confirmed its eighth case of Ebola. Patrick Amoth, director-general of the Health Ministry, said on Sunday that 38 people had been tested that day and one, a 49-year-old man, was positive after developing a fever, headache and muscle pain. He is not a health worker but a patient attendant who cleaned utensils and linen, and he is believed to have been exposed to the first patient, a 40-year-old man who died on 5 October after travelling from Congo through Uganda.
A day earlier the ministry said three health workers, aged 29, 32 and 35, had tested positive after treating that first patient at Nairobi Hospital on 3 and 4 October, before Ebola was suspected. The other cases are three of his relatives. Officials say every infection is linked to the first patient and that there is no evidence of community spread, as each new patient was already in quarantine as a known contact. About 130 contacts were identified, and the six other surviving patients are stable.
The Kenyan cases are caused by Bundibugyo virus, one of three viruses known to cause large Ebola outbreaks. Approved vaccines and treatments exist only for the species called Ebola virus, so care for the others relies on early detection and supportive treatment such as rehydration. It passes from person to person when someone touches an infected patient’s blood or other body fluids, or contaminated objects, and symptoms appear 2 to 21 days after infection. Health workers are often infected when infection control is not strictly followed.
Congo’s Ebola outbreak spreads to an eighth province
Ebola has reached an eighth province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Health Ministry said on Sunday that two cases, one of them fatal, had been recorded in Nord-Ubangi, a northern province on the border with the Central African Republic. The two men, both in their 20s, lived in the Wapinda health zone, which lies next to Bas-Uele province, where infections had already been reported. The Central African Republic itself has not recorded any confirmed cases so far.
Authorities have counted at least 9,400 cases, including more than 4,500 deaths, since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, making it the deadliest in the country’s history. Ituri province in the east accounts for almost three quarters of confirmed cases. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said pockets of infection were generally falling but the virus was spreading geographically. North Kivu plans a one-week ban from Monday 19 October on people arriving from Ituri, along with limits on vehicle passengers and large gatherings.
Ebola was first identified in 1976, when one of two simultaneous outbreaks struck Yambuku, a village near the Ebola River in what is now Congo, which gave the disease its name. The present outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, for which no vaccine or treatment has yet been approved, although candidate products are being developed. The average fatality rate of Ebola disease is about 50%, but it has ranged from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. Fruit bats are thought to be the natural hosts of the viruses that cause it.
Seven more children die in Bangladesh, taking its measles deaths to 1,196
Seven more children died with suspected measles in Bangladesh in the 24 hours to 8am on Sunday, taking the outbreak’s death toll to 1,196, according to the Directorate General of Health Services. Of those deaths, 1,092 are classed as suspected and 104 as confirmed. Officials also recorded 1,254 new suspected cases, bringing the total to 213,244, while confirmed cases rose by 65 to 23,122 since the outbreak began in mid-March. Hospitals have admitted more than 189,000 suspected patients.
World Health Organization figures show more suspected cases in Bangladesh than in any other country this year. The country’s routine vaccination programme faltered in 2025, after protests in 2024 ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power and health workers went on strike. First-dose coverage fell from 96% in 2024 to an estimated 90% in 2025, below the 95% needed to prevent outbreaks. Mark Jit, a WHO vaccine adviser, called it “a real warning to every country”, and one public health expert said deaths could continue for at least another month.
Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus that spreads when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes, and it causes fever, a cough, a runny nose and a rash across the body. Most deaths come from complications such as pneumonia, brain swelling and severe diarrhoea, which are most common in children under five and in those who are malnourished. The World Health Organization estimates that about 95,000 people died of measles worldwide in 2024, and that vaccination prevented nearly 59 million deaths between 2000 and 2024.
South Africa confirms four new mpox cases, taking its total to 26
South Africa’s Health Department has confirmed four new mpox cases, bringing the number of laboratory-confirmed infections in the country to 26 as of 17 October. The Western Cape accounts for 18 of them, with three in Gauteng, two each in the Eastern Cape and the Free State, and one in KwaZulu-Natal. The first two cases in the Western Cape were imported, involving a German and a Norwegian visitor, while the other 24 have been linked to local transmission.
All but one of the patients are men, and their ages range from 23 to 50. Thirteen cases have been linked to the clade Ib strain of the virus and four to clade IIb. The Free State recorded its first case last week, in Sasolburg, and a provincial health spokesperson, Mondli Mvambi, said the patient was stable and isolating at home and the risk to the public was low. People with a rash, fever, headache, muscle aches or swollen lymph nodes are urged to seek care, and contacts to watch for symptoms for 21 days.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus from the same genus as the one behind smallpox, and it has two main clades, I and II, each with subclades. A global outbreak driven by clade IIb began in 2022, and outbreaks of clades Ia and Ib have since grown in Congo and other African countries. The virus spreads mainly through close contact, including skin-to-skin and sexual contact, and causes a rash that can last two to four weeks. Vaccines exist, and most people recover fully.
GLP-1 drug users have slightly fewer heart problems and infections after surgery
Adults on GLP-1 medicines such as semaglutide or tirzepatide ahead of planned surgery had slightly lower rates of heart complications and infections afterwards, according to an analysis of more than 2 million patients presented on 18 October at the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ annual meeting in San Diego. Researchers led by Josephine Tolan of UTHealth Houston used records of US adults whose operations lasted over an hour and who stayed in hospital for at least a day between 2016 and 2024.
Of 2,028,601 patients, about 7% were taking a GLP-1 drug. After users were matched with similar non-users, the drugs were linked to 11% lower odds of major cardiovascular complications and 8% lower odds of infections. In absolute terms, heart complications affected 1.0% of users and 1.1% of non-users, and infections 4.9% and 5.3%. The study was observational and has not appeared as a full peer-reviewed paper, so it does not show that the drugs caused the difference. Tolan said more research was needed.
GLP-1 agonists are used to manage type 2 diabetes and to treat obesity, and they work by reducing appetite, lowering blood sugar and slowing digestion. That slower emptying of the stomach is the main worry for anaesthetists, because food can remain in the stomach despite fasting and raise the risk of it being inhaled during anaesthesia. Guidance issued in 2024 by the society and four other medical bodies says most patients can keep taking the drugs, with decisions tailored to each person’s risk of delayed stomach emptying.