Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case in the country's history this week after a man who had traveled from the Democratic Republic of Congo died in a Nairobi hospital, triggering contact tracing across two countries and a wave of public anxiety over East Africa's deadliest Ebola outbreak in a decade.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said the man had been living in the DRC, fell ill roughly a month earlier and sought treatment there before traveling overland to Kampala, Uganda, and flying into Nairobi on October 3. He was screened, confirmed positive for the virus and placed in isolation at Nairobi Hospital, where he died late on October 5, according to Eyewitness News and Khaleej Times.

Kenyan officials have identified 28 close contacts, including family members and health workers, who are being monitored in isolation through the virus's 21-day incubation window. A further 23 passengers and four crew members from the same Nairobi-bound flight are also being traced. Duale said only one contact has tested positive so far.

A region already overwhelmed

Kenya is now the fourth country drawn into an outbreak that has ravaged the DRC since health authorities declared it on May 15. The epidemic, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, has infected more than 7,600 people and killed at least 3,699 as of the latest count from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, making it the second-deadliest Ebola epidemic ever recorded. Uganda logged 20 cases before the World Health Organization declared its chain of transmission over, and a single case reached France earlier this year.

"I wish to assure the public not to panic, as all systems are in place to mitigate the spread of the disease," Duale said.

The case lands in a country with no history of Ebola and a public already wary of how outbreaks are handled. Kenyan authorities faced furious backlash earlier this year over a proposal to build an Ebola isolation facility at Laikipia Air Base, and a separate, U.S.-funded isolation center has been tied up in legal challenges and protests by residents who feared it would expose them to the virus, according to an Al Jazeera analysis of the response.

Kenya's Ministry of Health has put border crossings and airports on high alert, and officials are watching closely for secondary cases among the dozens of traced contacts. With no vaccine or treatment approved specifically for the Bundibugyo strain, health authorities say the next two to three weeks of monitoring will determine whether the virus gained any further foothold outside the DRC.