Ebola spreads to a fourth African country: Nigeria confirms first case in over a decade

Health authorities across Africa are scrambling to determine how Nigeria's first Ebola patient in more than a decade became infected, amid fears the outbreak could spread further after reaching a fourth African country.

The Swiss government said Friday that the Nigerian patient, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat stationed in Abuja, had not traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the outbreak was first detected in mid-May before spreading to Uganda, Kenya, and now Nigeria.

According to Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the woman is believed to have contracted Ebola while traveling with her husband through Uganda, a country the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Ebola-free in August. The possibility of undetected transmission in that country has heightened regional health concerns.

With four countries affected across eastern, central, and western Africa, this is the most geographically widespread Ebola outbreak recorded to date on the continent. Nigerian authorities tested the woman for Ebola 13 days after she fell ill in Abuja.

One hypothesis under investigation is that the patient may have contracted the virus from Kenya's first confirmed Ebola patient, who flew from Entebbe airport in Uganda on the same day in early October and died two days later at a hospital in Nairobi. Experts such as Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, of the WHO's Ebola emergency committee, warned that the theory is speculative without evidence of direct contact.

Uganda reported 20 Ebola cases in May and June, most imported from Congo, and has detected none since June, according to spokesman Alan Kasujja. Ebola has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 4,600 in Congo; it causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and, in severe cases, bleeding, and the rare strain behind this outbreak has no approved treatment or vaccine.

Photo: WHO / UN

Source: Reuters