First Ebola Case Reported in Nigeria

Nigeria confirmed on Tuesday, October 20, its first case of Ebola in the current African outbreak. The patient is a woman who travelled from Uganda to the capital, Abuja, the Health Ministry said, according to the Associated Press and AFP.

The woman began showing symptoms on October 7 and was admitted to a private hospital in Abuja on October 11, where she was later diagnosed, PBS NewsHour reported, citing the AP. It is not clear when she arrived in the country. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said authorities had started tracing 44 people identified as her contacts. "We are doing everything possible to contain this case by tracing all the contacts the individual may have had," he said.

Uganda's Ministry of Health said the patient had only transited through Uganda after a business trip to eastern Congo, and that travel through the country "does not establish that infection occurred here." It insisted that Uganda has no confirmed active cases. Nigerian authorities have not disclosed the woman's nationality.

The outbreak, declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May, has now reached central, eastern and western Africa. Kenya recorded its first case on October 6 and reported its ninth on the same Tuesday, a close relative of the first patient, according to AFP. In the DRC, health authorities count 4,381 deaths among more than 9,000 confirmed cases, the deadliest epidemic in the country's history.

Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, described it as "the most geographically widespread Ebola outbreak in history." Writing on X, he warned that "with mortality approaching 50% in DRC, we face an extremely serious threat," and urged the international community to send money, medical supplies and health workers.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said two weeks earlier that it was stepping up surveillance after the cases in Kenya, focusing on early detection, isolation, laboratory testing and contact tracing. Nigeria set up an Ebola task force in June, after the outbreak in Congo was declared.