Nigeria Tracks 53 Ebola Contacts
Nigeria’s public health agency says it has identified 53 contacts of the country’s confirmed Ebola patient, reversed a narrowing of its traveller health-declaration requirement, and is looking into two further suspected cases. The response is widening in Abuja, where a Bundibugyo virus infection was confirmed in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on 20 October.
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) Director-General Jide Idris gave the update at a press briefing on Sunday. The agency’s situation report, dated 24 October, says 53 contacts have been identified, categorised and followed up, including health workers, domestic staff and the patient’s spouse. Premium Times reports Idris as saying 44 are linked to the health facility where she was treated and nine are additional contacts, among them household members, with some having attended her at another facility or being part of the FCT team that collected samples. Contacts are monitored for 21 days from their last possible exposure, the maximum incubation period. Idris urged anyone contacted by health officials to cooperate fully and give accurate information about their movements and symptoms. “Being identified as a contact does not mean that you have Ebola,” he said.
A suspected case reported by Rivers State on 23 October tested negative. Idris also announced two more suspected cases, which he stressed remain unconfirmed, according to Daily Post. The report, which was still developing, gave no locations or other details for those cases.
The NCDC has also changed its approach to travellers. Idris said a health declaration requirement initially applied to all international travellers, was later restricted to passengers arriving from selected countries linked to the outbreak, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and has now been reversed. “But with this case, we have reversed that directive,” he said. The agency has sent advisories to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), with further instructions expected to guide implementation with airlines.
Preparedness measures focus on five international airports: Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Kano and Port Harcourt. Port Health Services is working with aviation, immigration and customs personnel, and immigration and customs officials are involved at land borders. Idris said the NCDC does not independently control airport operations, acknowledged that ongoing construction at Lagos airport had complicated the work of Port Health Services, and said the agency would engage FAAN and the NCAA on the issue. Access to restricted airport areas, he added, must follow established security procedures.
The patient is a 42-year-old woman who travelled from Uganda through Addis Ababa and arrived in Abuja on 3 October, the NCDC report says. The World Health Organization’s Nigeria office says her symptoms began on 7 October and that Nigeria became the fifth country to detect the virus since the outbreak was declared in the DRC on 15 May 2026. She presented to a private health facility on 10 October and to another on 11 October, where she was admitted. The NCDC was notified on 19 October, and its National Reference Laboratory confirmed the diagnosis the next day.
Her symptoms on presentation included fever, diarrhoea, generalised body aches and a sore throat, and no bleeding was reported. An NCDC laboratory official said earlier this week that her condition had deteriorated into multiple organ failure. New Dawn Nigeria reports that Idris said on Sunday she had improved remarkably and was receiving care in isolation.
The NCDC is running its response through an Incident Management System coordinated by the Emergency Operations Centre, under Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare Mohammed Pate and the Presidential Task Force on EVD. “I recognize the concern that the confirmation of Ebola may have caused among Nigerians,” Idris said. “Ebola is a serious disease, and we are handling this situation with the urgency it deserves.” Teams are working to find everyone who may have been exposed, he said, including health workers, patients, caregivers, household members and travel-related contacts. The agency is also strengthening infection control in hospitals, supporting laboratory capacity and issuing public information to counter rumours and misinformation.
Idris praised the health workers whose vigilance led to the case being identified and said the government would prioritise their safety, health and welfare. He called on every public and private health facility to review infection prevention and control immediately, with consistent screening and triage, adequate protective equipment and staff trained to use it, and prompt isolation and reporting of any suspected case. “Healthcare workers should not wait for laboratory confirmation before taking appropriate precautions,” he said.
NCDC official Biodun Oguniyi said earlier this week that the Bundibugyo virus differs from the Zaire strain behind Nigeria’s 2014 outbreak, that no licensed vaccine or approved treatment exists for it, and that it has a case fatality rate of about 50 per cent in the DRC. He noted that the case was confirmed on the anniversary of Nigeria’s 2014 declaration as Ebola-free. Genomic sequencing of the case has been completed by the NCDC National Reference Laboratory and the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases.
