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Swiss officials said on Thursday that Nigeria’s first Ebola case in more than a decade may be linked to travel to Uganda, AnewZ reported. The source of the infection remains unclear. Uganda says there are no Ebola cases in the country.
The patient is the Uganda-born wife of a Swiss diplomat living in Abuja, Nigeria. According to a statement the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs gave to Reuters, she spent about a week at a private clinic in the Nigerian capital after developing symptoms. Officials suspect she contracted the virus during a trip to Uganda about two weeks earlier.
The statement said her husband, who travelled with her, had been isolated but had shown no symptoms.
Nigeria confirmed the infection on Tuesday, becoming the fourth country in Africa and the fifth worldwide to be affected by the outbreak. France also recorded an imported case in June. Nigeria is the most populous country among those affected by the outbreak.
The outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it was declared in mid-May. The World Health Organization (WHO) has described it as the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record.
Conflicting accounts of the travel route
Ugandan officials say the woman travelled to eastern Congo before visiting Uganda. Government spokesman Alan Kasujja told Reuters that there were no Ebola cases in Uganda.
“If there were such a case, we would be the first to announce it, as we have done before,” Kasujja said.
The WHO declared Uganda free of Ebola in August. Twenty infections were recorded there in May and June, most of them reportedly imported from Congo.
However, both the WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) say they have received no evidence confirming that the woman travelled to Congo.
Africa CDC official Vessam Mankoula said Nigeria and Uganda were sharing information to trace the woman’s movements and determine where she may have been exposed to the virus.
According to WHO representative in Nigeria Pavel Ursu, available information indicates that the woman was in Uganda from September 16 and returned to Abuja on October 3.
The WHO said she developed symptoms on October 7, four days after returning to Nigeria. She visited a private medical facility in Abuja on October 11, and laboratory tests confirmed Ebola on October 20.
Nigerian officials have identified 44 people who had contact with the patient and are monitoring all of them.
Ursu said the patient remained in hospital and that her biochemical indicators were showing signs of improvement.
Patrick Otim, the WHO’s emergency response manager, stressed that the source of the infection had not yet been established.
Otim said investigators were also checking which medical facilities in Abuja the woman had visited in the 48 hours between becoming ill and being admitted to hospital.
Possible link to case in Kenya under investigation
Africa CDC is investigating a possible link between the woman who fell ill in Nigeria and Kenya’s first Ebola case. It has been established that both people departed from Uganda’s Entebbe airport on the same day.
Mankoula said the possibility that transmission occurred between the two patients was one of the scenarios being investigated.
Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on October 6 and has since recorded eight more infections. Health Ministry Director General Patrick Amoth said all 135 people linked to the country’s first patient had been identified.
Outbreak continues to spread in Africa
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, which has killed about half of those infected. There is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for this virus.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, including those who have died from the disease.
According to Africa CDC, the outbreak has caused about 4,700 deaths across the four affected African countries.
