Nigeria on Tuesday announced its first case of Ebola during the current outbreak, as the virus continued to spread internationally.
The woman who was infected recently flew to Nigeria from Uganda and received the diagnosis several days after starting treatment at a private hospital in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, according to a statement by the Nigerian health ministry.
“She is currently in isolation and receiving medical care,” said the statement, which was posted on social media.
The epicenter of the world’s fastest growing Ebola outbreak is at the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 1,600 miles southeast of Abuja. More than 4,600 people have died in Congo since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the continent’s main public health body.
The disease has also spread to across Congo’s borders to neighboring Uganda, where it was quickly contained after just 20 cases and three deaths, and then this month to Kenya.
The authorities in Kenya said Tuesday that a ninth person had tested positive for the virus since Oct. 6, when Ebola was found in a Kenyan man who had arrived from Congo via a flight from Uganda. He subsequently died. They said that everyone who tested positive for the disease had already been in quarantine.
The announcement of the case in Nigeria will probably concern the public, but medical experts say that single cases are relatively easy to contain as long as the correct health measures are followed. These include prompt isolation of the patient to prevent further contamination, particularly of medical staff, and the identification of the people with whom the patient came into contact.
In all, 44 contacts of the female patient, who was not named, have been identified, the health ministry said. Ebola can be spread only after an infected person develops symptoms, so the vast majority of people who are quarantined because of potential exposure do not have the virus.
However, the fact that the woman had been treated for several days before her diagnosis suggested that health care workers, and possibly others, may have been exposed.
The international health authorities have been quick to defend Nigeria, praising its prompt announcement of the virus, in line with a policy that encourages governments to be transparent about Ebola.
“This Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak has already become the most geographically extensive in history, affecting several countries spread across three regions of Africa,” said Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa C.D.C., on social media. He called it “an extremely serious threat,” given that nearly half of all people who contract the virus die. Bundibugyo is the strain of Ebola in the current outbreak.
Early in the outbreak, an American doctor involved in Ebola care in Congo was evacuated to Germany after testing positive. He recovered. France recorded a case in June, when a French doctor also treating patients in Congo returned home. He has since recovered. A health worker involved in the response was also medically evacuated to the Netherlands this month after testing positive.
During the epidemic that started in 2014 in West Africa — the worst the world has seen in terms of the number of deaths — a few Ebola cases spread to Nigeria. But the Nigeria outbreak was then swiftly contained, in part because of the quick reactions and courage of doctors who have since been lauded as national heroes.
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