9,500 Infected: Nigeria Confirms Ebola Case Amid Blame Dispute

Nigeria confirmed its first Ebola infection in over a decade on Friday, identifying the patient as the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat stationed in Abuja. The Swiss foreign ministry stated that the woman had not visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the current outbreak began in mid-May. Instead, Bern argued she likely contracted the virus during travel with her husband in Uganda.

This official account directly contradicts earlier claims from Ugandan authorities. Uganda previously stated the patient had traveled to eastern DR Congo. A Ugandan government spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the country had no active Ebola cases and would publicize any new diagnoses immediately. The discrepancy has fueled debate over whether health officials can contain a virus that has now reached a fourth nation.

Investigators are scrutinizing a potential link to a Kenyan case. Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that both the Nigerian patient and a Kenyan patient passed through Uganda's Entebbe airport on October 3. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO Ebola incident manager, said via a UN briefing that comparing the timing of these airport transits with the Nigerian patient's symptom onset is essential to determine if the infection occurred there.

Experts remain skeptical of the airport connection. Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist and member of the WHO's Ebola emergency committee, described the theory as very speculative without proof of shared space. She argued that merely being present at a large airport simultaneously does not constitute a supported epidemiological link under current scientific standards.

Nigeria's health minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, assured the public that the case remains contained. Contact tracing is ongoing to prevent the virus from moving into surrounding communities. He emphasized the goal of stopping local transmission before it becomes widespread.

The outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo virus, a strain for which no approved vaccine or treatment currently exists. First announced on May 15, the epidemic has infected more than 9,500 people. Nearly half of those infected have died. This makes it the largest outbreak in DR Congo's history and the second deadliest globally, trailing only the 2014 to 2016 west Africa epidemic which infected more than 28,600 people.