The Nigerian health ministry said a woman had been diagnosed with Ebola in the capital, Abuja, after travelling from Uganda, reports Sky News.
This is the first case during the current outbreak as the deadly virus continues to spread on the continent.
The authorities said the woman had been diagnosed after entering the country from Uganda, which recorded a number of cases earlier this year but has since declared itself free of the virus.
Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Pate said the patient began showing symptoms on 7 October before being admitted to hospital where she tested positive.
It remains unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, but Pate said authorities had started tracing 44 people identified as contacts.
Uganda’s health ministry said the patient was a Nigerian woman who had only transited through Uganda while on a business trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was first announced in May.
It insisted that “travel through Uganda does not establish that infection occurred here”, adding that “the location of exposure remains under investigation”.
Nigerian authorities have not disclosed the patient’s nationality.
‘An extremely serious threat’
Nigeria is the latest country to report an Ebola case as the outbreak continues to spread across Africa, with Kenya recording nine infections since confirming its first case earlier this month.
More than 4 000 deaths have been recorded in the DRC since the start of the outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no known treatment or vaccine.
Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a social media post that “we are facing an extremely serious threat”, with a fatality rate of nearly 50% of cases.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said earlier this month it was stepping up surveillance after the detection of the virus in Kenya, and strengthening the country’s preparedness for a potential outbreak.
“These efforts have focused on early detection, isolation and referral, laboratory diagnosis, infection prevention and control, contact tracing, risk communication and protection of healthcare workers,” the agency said.
Bruised by a previous Ebola outbreak that began in 2014, it had established an Ebola taskforce in June already, with Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to President Bola Tinubu, saying Nigeria “does not want a repeat of what happened during the last outbreak when a carrier entered the country, and everyone was scrambling to respond”.
“We have covered a lot of ground and established structures to address any potential threat,” he added.
Sky News article – Nigeria confirms Ebola case as outbreak continues to spread (Open access)
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