Nigeria confirms first Ebola case: diplomat's wife who holidayed in Uganda
- A 42-year-old woman in Abuja is Nigeria's first confirmed Ebola case since the East Africa outbreak began in May.
- The health minister says she is stable and improving, and 44 contacts are in isolation with no symptoms so far.
- Officials say she fell ill after a holiday in Uganda, though Uganda's health ministry has given a different account of her travels.
Nigeria has recorded its first confirmed Ebola case since the outbreak in East Africa began in May. The patient is a 42-year-old woman in Abuja, the wife of a diplomat, who fell ill after returning from a holiday in Uganda.
Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate told the BBC the woman spent about two and a half weeks in Kampala and also had a two-hour stopover in Ethiopia's capital on her way home. She arrived back in Abuja on 3 October and fell ill three days later.
Dr Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said she first went to a private hospital thinking she had malaria, then a second private hospital, where she was admitted on 11 October. Malaria is common in Nigeria and shares symptoms with Ebola, including fever, headache, muscle pain and vomiting.
Public health authorities were alerted on Monday 19 October after her condition did not improve, Pate said. Three laboratory tests confirmed Ebola the next day.
Contacts in isolation
Pate said 44 people who had been in contact with the woman have been identified and are in isolation. None are known to have developed symptoms, including the person she travelled with. The minister said the woman has not left Abuja since landing.
"She's stable, she's improving," Pate said. He added that officials cast the net wide to contain the virus, noting that not all the contacts had been in close proximity to the patient.
Ebola spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids such as blood or vomit. Symptoms can appear anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure, so contacts may not fall ill for several weeks.
The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 4,600 people and infected more than 9,500 since May, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Uganda reported at least two deaths and declared itself free of the disease in August. Kenya has reported at least nine infections.
Conflicting accounts of her travels
Uganda's health ministry earlier described the woman as a Nigerian national who had travelled to eastern DR Congo for business and only passed through Uganda. It said there were no active Ebola cases in the country and that her passage through Uganda did not mean she caught the virus there.
Pate and Kaseya's account contradicts that statement. Both officials sought to ease any tension. "We respect our sister nation of Uganda," Pate said. "We have very strong solidarity, we are all in it together."
Pate said Nigeria is working with Uganda, Ethiopia and the Africa CDC to establish the full facts. Kaseya urged African countries to share information and asked Western countries not to impose travel restrictions.
Nigeria contained an Ebola outbreak in 2014 with 20 confirmed cases and eight deaths. Pate said the country has strengthened surveillance, laboratories and trained epidemiologists since then. "Nigeria has muscle memory that has been activated, but we are not fighting the past outbreak in exactly the same way. We have to be vigilant," he said.
What happens next: The 44 contacts remain in isolation while officials work with Uganda, Ethiopia and the Africa CDC to establish the full facts of the woman's travels.
