Ebola: Switzerland Separates Evacuated Couple
A Swiss woman who was Nigeria’s only confirmed Ebola patient is being treated at Geneva University Hospitals, while her husband, a Swiss diplomat, is isolated as a contact at University Hospital Zurich.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health confirmed the arrangement after the couple were flown home from Abuja on Monday, saying there is no danger to the Swiss public. Reuters reports that it was not immediately clear why the couple were sent to different hospitals.
They left Abuja early on Monday on a specially equipped aircraft under strict protective measures. Swiss broadcaster SRF, citing footage from Nigeria’s Arise News, reported that the aircraft belonged to the Swiss air rescue service Rega. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said she left with his approval, and her husband has shown no symptoms. The patient, 42, is the wife of a Swiss embassy staff member based in the Nigerian capital. Reuters describes her as Ugandan-born. Swiss authorities say both hospitals have the infrastructure and trained staff to treat Ebola.
Pate said in a statement that she was “much improved, stable, conscious, communicating,” with her laboratory results “closing towards baseline.” He added: “This does not mean she is not still infectious.” The World Health Organization’s Africa director, Mohamed Janabi, said the evacuation was arranged because the couple are Swiss citizens and Nigerian medical teams had stabilised her through the acute phase of the illness. Switzerland will take over her care and monitor her husband, while Nigeria continues to follow 52 other contacts. He said that with the couple’s departure, Nigeria currently has no Ebola cases.
How she caught the virus is still unresolved. Nigerian authorities said on Friday they had yet to establish how she contracted it. Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya told Reuters that experts will travel to Nigeria to investigate, and that her travel documents show she had not visited Congo, contradicting statements from Ugandan officials. The Bundibugyo strain involved has no vaccine or specific treatment. SRF reports that the viruses in the first patients in Nigeria and Kenya are closely related genetically. It is Nigeria’s first Ebola case in more than a decade, and the outbreak has now been reported in East, Central and West Africa, the widest spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent.
She was diagnosed on 20 October, 17 days after she arrived in Abuja on 3 October, and some experts worry about how far the illness may have spread in that time. Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention head Jide Idris said on Sunday that nine more contacts had been traced, bringing the total to 53 primary contacts. The first 44 were health care workers, and the extra nine included more health staff, family members and household staff. A test on a suspected case in Rivers State came back negative.
Screening appears uneven. Nigeria has announced enhanced checks for arrivals at international airports, but at the land border with Benin an AFP reporter saw generic health forms that asked about fever without mentioning Ebola, and no temperature checks. Domestic flights are aslo not screening passengers. Elsewhere in the region, Congo has recorded more than 4,600 deaths since May, according to AFP. Uganda ordered 21-day quarantine on Sunday for its nationals returning from Congo, and Kenya has reported two deaths this month.
