'I got so scared': Nairobi residents worried after Kenya's first Ebola death

Several Nairobi residents expressed fear and concern on Wednesday after Kenyan authorities announced the country's first-ever Ebola death.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Aden Duale announced the death of a man who had recently returned to Kenya from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which declared its 17th Ebola outbreak in May.

The Kenyan citizen, who has not been named but was referred to as a 40-year-old businessman, fell ill around a month ago and had been treated in the DRC, Duale told reporters.

He travelled overland to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and then flew to Nairobi on October 3, where he received treatment in Nairobi before he died on Monday.

"I'm scared because you see that person who apparently came and died, we don't know how many people he had gotten in contact with and so because of our level of preparedness, we're not sure how the situation will go," said Crisps Kinyua, the founder and director of the Institute for Food Justice & Development, a youth-led nonprofit.

Kenyan authorities have identified 28 contacts of the deceased, including family members and healthcare workers, but none have tested positive for Ebola so far.

"Ebola is something we’ve heard about since our childhood, that it kills people a lot, so I am so shocked," said bodyguard Edwin Orwa.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kenya's health minister urged the population to "remain calm and vigilant", saying "measures are in place to mitigate the spread of the disease."

Over 8,000 cases have been recorded since the beginning of the current outbreak in the DRC.

As of October 2, the World Health Organization had recorded 4,082 deaths out of 8,463 cases since the emergence in the DRC of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment.

Kenya has never previously reported a case of Ebola, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.