Health teams check if two Ebola patients crossed paths in Uganda
Nigeria has quarantined 44 people after its first case in ten years, prompting a review of airport overlap with a fatal case in Kenya.
By Hugo Cook ·
Nigerian health officials have isolated 44 individuals who had close contact with the country's first confirmed Ebola patient in more than a decade. The quarantine measures followed a report on Tuesday that identified the infected individual as the Ugandan-born wife of a diplomat stationed in Abuja. Authorities stated that the woman traveled to Uganda for a vacation in September and returned to Nigeria at the start of this month.
Dr. Wessam Mankoula, who directs emergency preparedness and response at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed during a briefing on Thursday that the patient is currently receiving medical treatment. The primary focus of the current investigation is determining the original source of the infection. Officials are specifically examining whether the Nigerian patient interacted with the first confirmed Ebola case in Kenya while both were at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda.
The potential connection exists because both patients were present at the airport on the same day. Mankoula indicated that the agency is looking into whether there was some sort of interaction between the two cases during that time. This review is part of a wider effort to trace the spread of the disease across the continent.
The current outbreak began in May in eastern Congo and has become the fastest spreading in recorded history. As of now, at least 4,600 people have died in Congo, and roughly 9,700 have been infected. The virus moved into neighboring Uganda, which initially reported about 20 cases but was declared free of the disease in August.
Kenya recorded its first case in early October. Since then, eight additional cases have been confirmed in that country. The first Kenyan patient, who has since died, traveled from Congo to Kenya via Uganda. The Nigerian case marks the first in West Africa and makes Nigeria the fourth country on the continent to record an infection in this specific outbreak.
Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and is geographically distant from the epicenter in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola transmits through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or through contaminated items. The virus causes severe fever and can be fatal, but individuals are generally not considered infectious until symptoms appear.
Source: NPR
