ABUJA, October 22 (Aalimi Nation) – Nigeria has confirmed its first case of Ebola in the current outbreak, and health officials say the virus is the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the deadly epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said the patient is a woman who travelled from Uganda to the capital, Abuja, on October 3. She was tested on October 19 after officials learned of her recent travel, and the positive result was confirmed on October 20.
Olajumoke Babatunde, director of the NCDC's public health laboratory service, said on Wednesday: "We did three levels of tests, but all molecular. The strain was Bundibugyo." The World Health Organization has also confirmed the strain. There is no approved vaccine or specific treatment for it.
Patient's condition
An unnamed official said the woman is a diplomat and that her condition has worsened to multi-organ failure. The official did not give her nationality. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate has said she is in isolation and receiving treatment.
Ayoade Alakija, a Nigerian physician who co-chairs a G7 committee on investment in global health, said about 12 days passed between the onset of illness and testing, which may have exposed other people to the virus.
Contact tracing
Authorities have identified 44 contacts, most of them health workers, and are monitoring them while looking for others who may have been exposed. They include her husband, a Swiss national who lives with her in Abuja. Officials are also tracing passengers who travelled on the same flight from Uganda, though they say they do not believe she had symptoms during the journey.
The WHO said infection prevention and control measures were being stepped up at the private hospital in the capital where she sought care. Officials are also trying to establish how she became infected. The NCDC has asked travellers from affected countries to fill out health declarations since late September, and it is not yet clear whether any screening measure flagged her.
The wider outbreak
The outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in mid-May and is the country's deadliest on record. Health authorities there have reported more than 9,000 confirmed cases and 4,381 deaths. Nigeria is the fifth country to detect the virus in this outbreak, the WHO says. Kenya has reported nine cases since early October.
Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said the outbreak is "no longer one country's fight". He warned earlier this week of "an extremely serious threat" and said fatality rates in the Congo were approaching 50 per cent. He plans to convene Africa's health ministers next week to strengthen the cross-border response and review hospital capacity.
Nigeria has faced Ebola before. In 2014 the country's first case was detected in Lagos, and the outbreak was brought under control within about three months, with 20 infections and eight deaths. That was a different strain, imported from Liberia, during a West African epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people between 2013 and 2016.
Officials have not said whether further cases have been identified. The situation is developing and the figures above may change as testing and tracing continue.
