Nigeria Confirms Ebola Case in Swiss Diplomat's Wife as Origin Debate Continues

Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola case in over a decade, a development that has heightened concerns about the spread of the virus across the continent.

The patient is the wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja. Swiss foreign ministry officials stated on Friday that the woman is Ugandan-born and had not traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak began in mid-May. The ministry believes she caught the infection while traveling with her husband in Uganda.

This account conflicts with earlier reports from Ugandan officials. A government spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the woman had traveled to eastern DR Congo. The spokesperson added that Uganda has not recorded any new cases and would release public data if that changed. The discrepancy has raised questions about the ability of health authorities to track and contain a virus that has now reached four African countries.

Health agencies are investigating how the Nigerian patient was infected. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO Ebola incident manager, told a UN briefing in Geneva that WHO staff in DR Congo have no information suggesting the patient visited that country. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is examining a possible link to a case in Kenya. Both patients passed through Uganda's Entebbe airport on October 3.

Smallwood noted that a connection to the Kenyan case is possible, but officials must compare the timing of their airport overlap with the start of the Nigerian patient's symptoms. Marion Koopmans, a virologist on the WHO Ebola emergency committee, expressed doubt about the airport theory. She called the idea speculative without evidence that the two individuals shared a specific space for a sufficient duration. She stated that merely being in a large airport does not constitute a supported epidemiological link.

Nigeria's health minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, said the case is currently contained. He emphasized that contact tracing is ongoing to prevent the virus from moving into surrounding communities. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which no approved treatment or vaccine exists. First announced on May 15, the epidemic has infected more than 9,500 people and killed nearly half of them. It is the largest and deadliest outbreak in DR Congo's history and the second largest in the world, following the 2014-16 epidemic in West Africa.