Microregistrar Infection Newsletter · Monday 19 October 2026
Kenya’s eighth Ebola case is a patient attendant: UKHSA’s HCID country list still covers Kenya for returning-traveller assessment.
Kenya now has 8 confirmed Bundibugyo cases / 1 death. The newest is a 49-year-old patient attendant, not a clinician, who cleaned utensils and linens around the index patient and was confirmed on 18 Oct. UKHSA hasn’t said anything new, but Kenya remains on its HCID country-specific risk list (entry last noted updated 15 Oct). Use it for VHF risk assessment in returning travellers, including healthcare and hospital support staff. In the DRC, SitRep 155 puts the outbreak at 9,415 / 4,536, now in 8 provinces.
Not yet officially confirmed by UKHSA or WHO: the eighth case comes from Kenyan health ministry briefings reported by The Star, Al Jazeera and AP. There’s no WHO Disease Outbreak News or UKHSA statement on it yet.
Counted from today’s digest. The five journal items are one each from CID and EID and three from IJID; two of the IJID papers are catch-ups from late 17 Oct. Links are unique content links across the issue, not counting our two website links. Gaps are the access problems in the Coverage gaps list; reports that simply haven’t been published yet are listed separately and aren’t counted. Today’s digest has no sources checklist, so there’s no checks card.
Also today
The other headlines from today’s issue. Each one links through to the full summary. UK flu/COVID-19, measles and Salmonella figures are unchanged; week 43 flu/COVID is due on 22 Oct at 14:00.
DRC: 9,415 cases, 4,536 deaths
Data to 16 Oct: +67 cases and +26 deaths in 24 hours (CFR 48.2%). Nord-Ubangi (Wapinda) is now in the official tally as the 8th province; 66 zones affected.
Taken from the ebola-tracker.org SitRep summary. ECDC’s page is still on older figures (9,277 / 4,478).
Community antibiotic use and CA-CDI
An Ontario ecological study of 1,520 neighbourhoods: higher neighbourhood antibiotic use went with more community-associated C. difficile (adjusted RR 1.13 per 10-point rise in DOT/1000 person-days).
Pathotypr for TB surveillance
An open-source, alignment-free tool that assigns MTBC lineages and WHO-catalogued resistance markers from assemblies or reads.
No CDC travel notice for Kenya
The latest Level 2 updates are still yellow fever in Ghana (new) and Colombia (updated), from 16 Oct. There’s no new HAN, and MMWR is still the 15 Oct issue.
Echinocandins and new PAN CRRT filters
DSI/2026/014: where possible, give echinocandins ≥6 h after CRRT starts or after a new PAN filter circuit, without delaying CRRT.
HCWs living with HIV and EPPs
The UKAP consultation on healthcare workers living with HIV who perform exposure-prone procedures closes on 8 Nov 2026.
What we could not confirm
Kenya’s eighth case is from press reports of health ministry briefings, and WHO hasn’t published on Kenya’s secondary cases. The DRC figures come from a SitRep summary site, and ECDC’s page hasn’t caught up yet. Some CDC pages and several journal sites blocked us, so three IJID papers are title-only, and our X searches returned very little.
Microregistrar Moodle update
No new Moodle updates since the last check. The latest entries are still 17 Oct 2026 — Stah aureus (updated) and 15 Oct 2026 — Guidance for UEMS European Microbiology exam.
The full list is in the Microregistrar moodlecloud sheet ›
Watched pages
We check nine pages every morning for anything new, compared with what we saw last time (checked 19 Oct 2026 08:05 BST; all 9 were reachable). After our relevance filter, there’s nothing new to list today, and RCPath exams haven’t changed.
Health Protection Report (UKHSA)
No changeNo new reports (still volume 20 issue 9, 24 Sep).
UK SMI News (RCPath)
No changeNo new items.
RCPath Examinations
No changeNo new exam news. No new or changed documents on the examinations pages.
Green Book
No changeNo new or updated chapters.
UKHSA organisation page (GOV.UK)
No changeNo new items in this window.
NICE published guidance
No changeNo new infection or antimicrobial items.
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
No changeNo new items.
Journal of Infection
No changeNo new items.
Journal of Hospital Infection
No changeNo new items.
Agencies & guidance
Kenya’s eighth Ebola case and DRC SitRep 155 are today’s main developments. UK surveillance, ECDC, WHO and CDC are all unchanged since yesterday.
Guidance changes
No new guidance changes
No new UK SMI, Green Book, NICE infection/AMR or EUCAST changes; EUCAST breakpoints remain v16.1.
- Still open: the UKAP consultation on healthcare workers living with HIV who perform exposure-prone procedures (closes 8 Nov 2026).
- Still current: MHRA DSI/2026/014. Where possible, give echinocandins ≥6 h after CRRT starts or after a new PAN filter circuit, without delaying CRRT.
- CDC yellow fever travel notices (Ghana new, Colombia updated, 16 Oct) are unchanged; relevant to pre-travel advice and fever in returning travellers.
UKHSA / MHRA / England
Kenya and UK practice
UKHSA hadn’t made a new public statement on Kenya’s eighth case (18 Oct) when we compiled this issue. Kenya remains on the UKHSA HCID country-specific risk list (entry last noted updated 15 Oct).
Action: use the list for VHF risk assessment in returning travellers, including healthcare and hospital support staff.
Week 42 still the latest
Hospital lab positivity: flu 6.0%, COVID-19 8.8%, RSV 1.0%. Week 43 is scheduled for 22 Oct 2026 at 14:00.
England: 1,030 cases
Lab-confirmed, 1 Jan–12 Oct 2026. The next monthly update is due around 12 Nov.
S. Enteritidis t5.9411: 439 cases
Data to week 41. No week 42 statistical release found.
Still week 41
Week ending 11 Oct; no newer release.
No new infection-relevant alert
DSI/2026/014 (echinocandins with new PAN-membrane CRRT filters, 13 Oct) remains current. The Nova StatStrip ketone-strip notice (DSI/2026/013) isn’t infection-relevant.
ECDC
Still 9,277 cases, 4,478 deaths (data to 14 Oct)
When we compiled this issue, the page didn’t yet reflect SitRep 155 or all of Kenya’s 17–18 Oct cases; a weekday update may follow later today. The Communicable Disease Threats Report for week 42 (published 16 Oct) is still the latest, with week 43 expected around 23 Oct. There’s no newer West Nile virus press release beyond the 15 Oct record-season note covered on 18 Oct.
Global — Ebola (Bundibugyo)
Kenya: 8 confirmed cases, 1 death (confirmed 18 Oct)
- The eighth case: a 49-year-old man working as a patient attendant (not a clinician), likely exposed while cleaning utensils and linens around the index patient. He developed fever, headache and muscle pain on Saturday, and was quarantined and tested; 1 of 38 people tested on Sunday was positive.
- Context: the four new cases on 17 Oct were three health workers and one relative, taking the total to 7. The one death is the index patient.
- Officials continue to say all cases are among contacts of the imported index patient, with no evidence of community transmission.
Press-reported: these details come from health ministry and Director-General Amoth briefings as reported by The Star, Al Jazeera and AP on 19 Oct. WHO hasn’t published a Disease Outbreak News on Kenya’s 17–18 Oct cases.
DRC: 9,415 confirmed, 4,536 deaths (data to 16 Oct, published 17 Oct)
- +67 cases / +26 deaths in 24 hours, up from 9,348 / 4,510 in SitRep 154; CFR 48.2%. New cases: Ituri 44, Nord-Kivu 14, Haut-Uélé 7, Nord-Ubangi 2.
- Nord-Ubangi (Wapinda) is now official as the 8th province (2 cases / 1 death); the outbreak spans 66 zones in 8 provinces.
- Recovered 2,522; 916 in treatment centres; 7-day average about 71.6 cases a day. Contact follow-up 79.1%, below the 85% target.
- Cumulative vaccination with Ervebo: 8,223 since 26 Aug. Media also report North Kivu planning entry restrictions from Ituri.
Check before quoting: these figures come from the ebola-tracker.org SitRep summary and PDF, not from ECDC or WHO, whose pages are still on older data. SitRep 156 wasn’t on the archive at compile time. Ervebo is a vaccine against Zaire ebolavirus, and the digest doesn’t explain its role in this Bundibugyo outbreak.
WHO
No new Disease Outbreak News
Nothing yet on Kenya’s 17–18 Oct cases. The last infection DON is still MERS-CoV, Saudi Arabia (15 Oct).
CDC / US
No new health advisory
The latest is still CDCHAN-00533 (rabies PEP, 10 Sep).
Still the 15 Oct issue
Vol 75 No 40: DTaP effectiveness in Alaska, dengue in the US Virgin Islands, and Cladophialophora bantiana. No Early Release since; the next weekly issue is expected around 22 Oct.
No Kenya Ebola travel notice
Unchanged since 16 Oct (page last reviewed then): Level 2 yellow fever for Ghana (new) and Colombia (updated). Ebola: Level 4 Ituri/Nord-Kivu, Level 3 Haut-Uélé/Tshopo, Level 2 for the rest of the DRC and Uganda. No Kenya Ebola travel notice is listed.
4,410 US cases (as of 15 Oct)
Page updated 16 Oct; the next update is usually mid-week.
Pathotypr early release
The TB genomic tool summarised in the Journals tab. The 16 Oct batch was covered on 18 Oct.
Nothing newer confirmed by CDC
No newer CDC-confirmed update in this window beyond items noted on 18 Oct (Washington dairy H5N1 via county reports and CIDRAP; the Florida dengue round-up).
We couldn’t re-confirm CDC’s bird flu situation page today.
Journals
New since the 18 Oct Sunday issue (online ~17–19 Oct). No new Lancet Infect Dis Online First, NEJM infection Online First dated 18–19 Oct, JAMA infection items, JAC, JAC-AMR, J Hosp Infect, ICHE/ASHE or Eurosurveillance items were clearly dated in this ~24-hour window. CMI items were covered on 18 Oct.
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Neighbourhood antibiotic use and community-associated C. difficile (Ontario ecological study)
Across 1,520 neighbourhoods (residents ≥66 with no hospitalisation in the prior 30 days, 2017–2023) there were 19,757 CA-CDI cases. Higher neighbourhood antibiotic days of therapy were associated with more CA-CDI: adjusted RR 1.13 per 10-point rise in DOT/1000 person-days (95% CI 1.09–1.18), with a steeper gradient for higher-risk antibiotic classes.
Takeaway: supports community stewardship as a lever on CA-CDI, not only hospital stewardship.
Emerging Infectious Diseases
Pathotypr: an alignment-free tool for TB genomic surveillance
Open-source; assigns MTBC lineages (L1–L10, A1–A4) and WHO-catalogued resistance markers from assemblies or reads (2,145 markers from 26,813 genomes; benchmarked on 88,071 samples). In the authors’ comparison it covers uncommon lineages better than TB-Profiler; genotypic–phenotypic resistance agreement was 86.4% on 7,148 CRyPTIC isolates.
Takeaway: practical for labs expanding WGS-based TB surveillance.
International Journal of Infectious Diseases
Genomic epidemiology of PER-type ESBLs in Proteus mirabilis
The title indicates genomic epidemiology and resistance mechanisms of PER-type extended-spectrum β-lactamases; relevant to Enterobacterales AMR surveillance.
Abstract not retrieved; title only.
Dengue virus serotype 3 lineages in Ecuador, 2022–2026
Online late 17 Oct: re-emergence of DENV-3III_C.1 and emergence of DENV-3III_B.3.2, with multiple introductions and dispersal. Background for dengue in travellers.
Title only.
C. trachomatis co-infection and cervical cancer risk in HPV-positive women
Online late 17 Oct.
Title only.
On X
A minimal weekday check. Our post search returned no data today, so we have no individual posts to link; one news summary on Kenya and Ebola did come through.
Kenya’s eighth Ebola case was the dominant infection signal overnight: a patient attendant, 8 cases in total, and no community spread claimed. This matches the health ministry and press coverage in the Agencies tab.
No primary post links were retrieved, so treat this as a summary only.
What we could not confirm
We want you to know exactly where today’s issue has limits, so here are the 3 gaps we couldn’t close, plus the reports that simply weren’t out yet.
| Source | Issue |
|---|---|
| CDC | The MMWR feed and EID feed worked, but some CDC pages wouldn’t load reliably. There’s no new HAN, and we couldn’t re-confirm the bird flu situation page today. |
| Journals | CMI and several Elsevier sites blocked our access. The IJID PER-type ESBL and dengue papers (and the C. trachomatis paper) are title-only, with no abstract available. |
| X | Post search returned no data, so we had just one news summary and no primary post links. |
Not out yet
- ECDC Ebola page: not yet refreshed for SitRep 155 or Kenya’s 7th and 8th cases; a weekday update may land later today.
- DRC SitRep 156: not yet on the archive.
- UKHSA: week 43 flu/COVID-19 (due 22 Oct), week 42 Salmonella and outbreaks under monitoring, and any formal Kenya HCID refresh after the eighth case.
- WHO DON: still nothing on Kenya’s secondary cases.
Sources
Today’s digest doesn’t include a sources checklist, so we can’t show ticked and open checks this time. These are the sources it draws on, as described in the issue.
- Watched pages (9 pages, all reachable, checked 19 Oct 08:05 BST)
- Microregistrar Moodle sheet (no new items)
- UKHSA GOV.UK: week 42 flu/COVID-19 report and week 43 announcement, measles, Salmonella, outbreaks under monitoring, HCID country-specific risk list, UKAP consultation
- MHRA drug and device alerts
- ECDC: Ebola page, CDTR
- Kenya: health ministry briefings via The Star, Al Jazeera and AP
- DRC: SitRep 155 summary, archive and PDF (ebola-tracker.org)
- WHO Disease Outbreak News
- CDC: HAN, MMWR, travel notices, measles, EID early releases
- Journal sweep: CID, EID, IJID and others with nothing new in the window
- X: one news summary