Topic
Explainers from the science desk
WHO has confirmed partial artemisinin resistance in four African countries. Kenya's malaria programme plans to start rotating first-line drugs from October, The Star reported on 28 April.
Floods can contaminate drinking water and spread cholera, and the standing pools they leave can breed mosquitoes and may raise malaria transmission some weeks later, WHO says; the Kenya Meteorological Department forecasts above-average rain in most counties for the October–December short rains.
El Niño is established and strengthening and is forecast to peak around December, WMO said on 8 October; Kenya's outlook is for above-average short rains in most counties.
Heavy rain lets more mosquito eggs hatch, and people mostly catch Rift Valley fever from sick livestock, according to the WHO and the US CDC. Most of Kenya is expected to get above-average rain in the October–December short rains, according to a weather outlook dated 30 September, the Kenya News Agency reported in The Star on 5 October.
The Indian Ocean Dipole, a sea-temperature gap across the Indian Ocean, tends to bring heavier October–December rain to Kenya when its western side is warmer, the Kenya Meteorological Department says. A Kenya Meteorological Department official was quoted by the farming news site FarmBizAfrica on 18 September as saying the dipole was still neutral, and the World Meteorological Organization predicted on 8 October that it would peak in October.
It is not known whether Ervebo, licensed only against the Zaire species of Ebola virus, protects people against the Bundibugyo virus behind Kenya's first imported case, WHO said in its outbreak notice of 28 August; the Phase Ib trial of Oxford's Bundibugyo-specific vaccine that began in Uganda on 6 October tests safety, not protection.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Prof Moses Obimbo said, as quoted by Business Daily on 10 October 2026, that not every urinary tract infection becomes sepsis, but one that spreads to the kidneys and bloodstream can. A Kenyan study published in 2023 found that 66% of the bacteria tested from patients with UTI-like symptoms were multidrug-resistant.
On 8 October 2026, WWF's Living Planet Report put the average fall in Africa's monitored wildlife populations since 1970 at 80%. WWF says this is an average change across monitored populations from 1970 to 2022, not a count of animals or populations lost.
On 6 October, Reuters reported Kenya's health ministry director-general as saying the country's first Ebola patient may have passed airport screening because medication masked his symptoms. WHO puts Ebola's incubation period at 2 to 21 days, and a 2014 analysis put 21 days at the 95th percentile.
On 6 October Kenya notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of a confirmed case of Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a species with no licensed vaccine. CEPI said on 1 June that no Bundibugyo vaccine was in clinical development; by 23 July Oxford's candidate was in a Phase 1 trial, Gavi reported, and on 7 August WHO experts recommended a trial of Ervebo, the licensed vaccine for the Zaire species.
