ABUJA — Nigeria has confirmed a case of Ebola disease in the Federal Capital Territory, twelve years after the country contained its last outbreak. The patient, a woman who recently arrived in the country on an international flight from Uganda, tested positive on Tuesday, 20 October, and is in isolation receiving treatment at a private hospital in Abuja.
The confirmation was announced in a statement by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, who said the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and the FCT Health Services Secretariat had begun a full public health response.
Health officials have so far identified 44 close contacts of the patient, including health workers, other patients, caregivers and people who travelled with her. The minister said the contacts have been placed under quarantine measures and are being monitored. Authorities are also working with the aviation sector to obtain flight passenger lists so that anyone who may have been exposed during the journey can be reached.
Speaking on national television on Tuesday night, Pate said the woman had no symptoms while travelling and fell ill after arriving in Nigeria. He said the virus detected was different from the Sudan and Zaire types of Ebola, that the NCDC has the laboratory capacity to identify it, and that international partners have offered support. "The government is on top of it," he said, urging travellers who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or Kenya to give health workers an accurate travel history.
The government has asked all public and private hospitals across the country to be on high alert, to isolate any suspected case, to follow strict infection prevention and control measures, and to report suspected cases immediately. The hospital treating the patient is receiving support to strengthen its own infection control. Further updates will come from the Presidential Task Force on Ebola Virus Disease and the NCDC.
In a message on Wednesday, the NCDC urged Nigerians to remain calm and to rely only on verified information. Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease or has died from it, or with materials contaminated by those fluids. A person cannot pass on the virus before symptoms appear.
Symptoms include fever, severe weakness, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Anyone who develops symptoms or believes they have been exposed is advised to avoid close contact with others and to call the health authorities before going to a hospital. The NCDC toll-free line, 6232, is open 24 hours a day.
The case comes as the Democratic Republic of Congo battles one of the largest Ebola outbreaks on record. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no licensed vaccine, had passed 8,700 confirmed cases and 4,200 deaths by early October, according to the World Health Organization. Kenya has confirmed nine cases since early October, while Uganda recorded 20 cases between May and June.
Nigeria's 2014 outbreak began when an infected traveller arrived in Lagos from Liberia. It led to 19 confirmed cases, one probable case and eight deaths before the World Health Organization declared the country free of Ebola on 20 October 2014 — twelve years to the day before this new case was confirmed.