Authorities are racing to track down passengers who boarded a flight from Uganda to Kenya on Saturday alongside a man infected with Ebola.

The man travelled by bus from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the epicentre of an Ebola outbreak that has killed 4,000 people, to Kampala, Uganda. He then boarded a flight to Nairobi on Saturday, October 3, which was operated by the African airline Jambojet.

The patient went to a hospital in Nairobi and died just 48 hours later, meaning the journey took place in the final days of infection, the stage at which patients who die of the disease are most contagious. By October 6 authorities had tracked down 28 contacts, including family members of the deceased, but said they urgently needed to track down 23 passengers and crew who had travelled on the same flight.

The man is Kenya’s first ever case of the disease . Ebola does not typically spread through the air like Covid-19 or measles, requiring close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person to spread.…