Nigeria traces first Ebola case in more than a decade as Uganda tightens travel controls

Nigeria and regional health agencies are investigating how a 42-year-old Ugandan-born woman became the country’s first confirmed Ebola patient in more than a decade.

The woman, the wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, returned to Nigeria on October 3 after spending about two and a half weeks in Uganda, Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate told the BBC. She also had a two-hour stopover in Addis Ababa. She developed symptoms three days after arriving in Abuja and tested positive on October 20 after initially seeking treatment for suspected malaria at private hospitals.

Pate said the patient was stable and improving. Nigerian authorities have identified 44 contacts and placed them in isolation; none, including her husband, had developed symptoms. Officials said she had not left Abuja after returning.

The source of her infection remains undetermined. Uganda initially said preliminary information indicated she had visited eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the World Health Organization and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said they had no verified evidence of such travel. Swiss officials said she was believed to have become infected while in Uganda. Investigators are also examining a possible connection to a Kenyan Ebola patient who departed Uganda’s Entebbe airport on October 3, though a WHO emergency committee member described that theory as speculative.

Uganda says the woman showed no symptoms when she departed and maintains that the country remains Ebola-free. It has reinstated traveller locator forms, strengthened screening and barred travellers with recent travel to the DRC from transiting through Uganda while the investigation continues.