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Nigeria’s first confirmed Ebola case since an outbreak began in East Africa in May is the wife of a diplomat who travelled to Uganda’s capital for a holiday, the head of Africa’s health agency told the BBC.
The woman, who is originally from Uganda and lives in Abuja, fell ill three days after returning to the Nigerian capital on 3 October, according to Dr Jean Kaseya of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nigeria’s health minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, told the BBC that the 42-year-old spent two and a half weeks in Kampala and made a two-hour stopover in Ethiopia’s capital on her way back.
“She’s stable, she’s improving,” Pate said.
The woman tested positive for Ebola on Tuesday. Authorities identified 44 people who had been in contact with her and were working to prevent the virus from spreading, the minister said.
“Not all of them have been in close proximity. We cast the net wide so that we contain it as broadly as possible,” Pate told the BBC.
All the contacts are in isolation, and none is known to have developed symptoms, including the person who travelled with the patient. Pate said the woman had not travelled outside Abuja since arriving in Nigeria.
Patient sought treatment for suspected malaria
Kaseya said the woman first developed symptoms on 6 October and sought medical help. She initially went to a private hospital, believing she had malaria, then visited a second private hospital, where she was admitted on 11 October, he told the BBC’s Newshour programme.
Malaria is endemic in Nigeria, and its symptoms—including high temperature, headaches, muscle aches, vomiting and diarrhoea—are similar to those of Ebola.
Public health authorities were alerted on Monday 19 October after the woman’s condition failed to improve, Pate said. Her diagnosis was confirmed the following day after three laboratory tests.
Ebola’s incubation period ranges from two to 21 days, so people exposed to the virus may not become ill for several weeks.
Ebola is a rare but deadly disease caused by a virus. As it progresses, vomiting and diarrhoea can develop, and the disease can lead to organ failure. Some patients experience internal and external bleeding. The virus spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit.
Officials give conflicting accounts of her journey
The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which began in May, has killed at least 4,600 people, with more than 9,500 cases recorded, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
The outbreak was also reported in Uganda, where at least two people died. Uganda declared itself free of the disease in August after its last patient was discharged.
Accounts of the Nigerian patient’s movements have differed. Pate and Kaseya’s statements conflict with an earlier statement from Uganda’s health ministry, which described the woman as a Nigerian national who had travelled to eastern DR Congo for business and had only transited through Uganda.
The Ugandan ministry said there were no confirmed active Ebola cases in the country and that the woman’s passage through Uganda did not mean she had contracted the virus there.
Pate said Nigerian officials were working with Uganda, Ethiopia and the Africa CDC to establish the full facts. “We respect our sister nation of Uganda,” he said. “We have very strong solidarity, we are all in it together.”
Kaseya urged African countries to share information to help investigators trace the woman’s movements and establish where she might have contracted the virus. He also called on Western countries not to impose travel restrictions, saying “collaboration and solidarity” were the way to help stop the outbreak.
The disease recently spread to Kenya, which has reported at least nine infections. On Monday, the United States advised its citizens to reconsider travel to Kenya because of health risks and raised its travel advisory level for the country.
Nigeria contained an Ebola outbreak in 2014 that resulted in 20 confirmed cases and eight deaths. Pate said he was confident the country could repeat that success, pointing to stronger disease surveillance, laboratories and thousands of trained epidemiologists.
“Nigeria has muscle memory that has been activated, but we are not fighting the past outbreak in the exactly the same way. We have to be vigilant,” he said.
The outbreak in DR Congo is caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which is relatively rare. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for it, although trials are under way.
