A healthcare worker is seen speaking to a colleague at the Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo. (AP Photo)
The first Ebola case detected in Nigeria is the Bundibugyo strain, which is behind a major DR Congo outbreak, and the patient is a diplomat, an emergency meeting heard on Oct. 21.
The case in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, was detected in a woman who had traveled from Uganda to the capital Abuja on Oct. 3, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said.
Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May, the deadly viral hemorrhagic fever has spread to several countries across the continent, including to neighboring Uganda.
“We did three levels of tests, but all molecular. The strain was Bundibugyo,” Olajumoke Babatunde, director of the public health laboratory service at the NCDC said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also confirmed that it was the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is still neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment.
“This person is actually a diplomat,” another official said, adding the patient has deteriorated into “multi-organ failure.”
The director general of Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, warned on Oct. 20 of “an extremely serious threat” as Kenya also declared its ninth Ebola case.
