Key points
- The WHO says the Ebola outbreak that began in Congo is now more complex, with cases in East and West Africa.
- Nigeria confirmed its first Bundibugyo case Tuesday, and investigators have not yet established where the patient was infected.
- The outbreak has killed more than 4,000 of over 9,000 confirmed cases in Congo since May.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that the Ebola outbreak that began in the Democratic Republic of Congo is becoming more complex, with cases now in East and West Africa and investigators still working to learn where Nigeria’s first patient was infected.
“We are facing a more complex outbreak landscape,” Mohamed Janabi, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, told an online media briefing.
Nigeria reported its first case of the Bundibugyo strain on Tuesday. That made it the fourth African country, and the most populous, hit by an outbreak announced in Congo in mid-May.
Kenya, Congo and Nigeria all have active or recent cases. Uganda had cases earlier this year but was declared Ebola-free in August.
The Nigerian patient is the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja. Ugandan authorities said she traveled to eastern Congo before passing through Uganda.
The WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday they had no confirmed information that she went to Congo.
Switzerland’s government told Reuters she is believed to have caught the disease while traveling in Uganda.
Uganda pushed back. Government spokesman Alan Kasujja told AFP it was “preposterous” to link the country to the case just because she had holidayed there.
Wessam Mankoula of Africa CDC said the first Nigerian and first Kenyan patients both left Entebbe on Oct. 3, and investigators are looking into a possible encounter between them.
Pavel Ursu, the WHO representative in Nigeria, said the information given to the agency showed no travel outside Uganda.
WHO emergency response manager Patrick Otim said the source of the infection remains unknown. Investigators are checking which Abuja health facilities she visited between the onset of symptoms and her hospitalization 48 hours later.
Kenya confirmed its first case earlier this month and has reported eight more since. Patrick Amoth, the health ministry’s director-general, said officials had traced all 135 contacts of the first case. Nigeria is tracing 44 contacts, and Mankoula said more have been identified since.
Congo’s health authorities call the outbreak the deadliest in the country’s history. It has killed more than 4,000 of the more than 9,000 people confirmed infected since May.
Uganda recorded 20 confirmed cases, 15 of them imported from Congo, and two deaths before it was declared Ebola-free. Africa CDC has warned of an “extremely serious threat,” with the death rate in Congo approaching 50 percent.
