Nigeria Confirms First Ebola Case as Outbreak Reaches West Africa
A woman who arrived from Uganda has tested positive in Abuja, Nigeria’s first case of this outbreak, and 44 contacts are being traced. She developed symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a private hospital four days later. The strain involved has no approved vaccine or treatment.
That last point deserves emphasis because it is easily got wrong. This is the Bundibugyo species, which kills close to half of those it infects and for which there is no licensed vaccine or treatment, only trials; the vaccine seen being administered in the region is licensed against a different species of the virus. Jean Kaseya, who runs the Africa Centres for Disease Control, said “we are facing an extremely serious threat” and that this outbreak “has already become the most geographically extensive in history, affecting several countries spread across three regions of Africa”. Nigeria’s health minister, Muhammad Pate, said the government was “doing everything possible to contain this case by tracing all the contacts the individual may have had”. Kenya has nine confirmed cases, all traced to one man who died, with 134 of 135 listed contacts in quarantine. Uganda disputes that the woman was infected on its territory, insisting it has no active cases and that “the location of exposure remains under investigation”. More than 4,000 people have died since the outbreak was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May. Nigeria contained an outbreak in 2014 at 20 cases.