Ebola Outbreak: 9,500 Infected as Nigeria Confirms First Case in Decade

More than 9,500 people have been infected by the current Ebola outbreak, which has reached a fourth African nation. The disease, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, first appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May. It has since killed nearly half of those it has touched, making it the deadliest epidemic in that country's history and the second largest globally.

Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola case in over ten years. The patient is the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat stationed in Abuja. The Swiss foreign ministry announced on Friday that she likely contracted the virus while traveling with her husband in Uganda. This account directly conflicts with earlier reports from Ugandan authorities, who stated that the woman had traveled to eastern DR Congo before arriving in Nigeria.

The discrepancy in the patient's travel history has created confusion about how to contain the spread. A Ugandan government spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that Uganda had no active Ebola cases and would publicize any new findings. The World Health Organization declared Uganda free of the virus in August, after cases were reported in May and June. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO Ebola incident manager, stated that staff in DR Congo have no information indicating the patient visited that country.

Investigators are now focusing on a potential link to a case in Kenya. Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the Nigerian patient and a Kenyan Ebola case both passed through Entebbe airport on October 3. However, Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO's Ebola emergency committee, called this theory speculative. She argued that merely being present at a large airport is not a supported epidemiological link without evidence of shared space.

Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said the situation remains contained. He emphasized that contact tracing is ongoing to prevent the virus from moving into local communities. "We are trying to contain it so it doesn't go out to the communities," he said. The outbreak is the largest in DR Congo's history, surpassing all previous records in the region.

The lack of an approved treatment or vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain adds urgency to these efforts. The current epidemic is the second largest in the world, following the 2014 to 2016 outbreak in West Africa, which infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000. Officials from Kenya and Nigeria are working to determine if the transmission occurred during transit or at another point in the patient's itinerary.