JOHANNESBURG – The first Ebola patient confirmed in Nigeria may have crossed paths with the first Kenyan Ebola patient at a Ugandan airport, health officials said Thursday.
Nigeria announced its first case of Ebola in more than a decade on Tuesday. Nigerian health authorities said the patient is the Ugandan-born wife of a diplomat based in Abuja who had vacationed in Uganda in September and returned to Nigeria earlier this month.
She is being treated and 44 people she had close contact with have been quarantined, Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness and response at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a press briefing on Thursday.
Authorities are now investigating what the source of her exposure was.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is the fourth on the continent to record an Ebola case during the current outbreak, but it's the first in West Africa and the furthest away from the epicenter in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congo's current Ebola outbreak began in May in the country's east. It has become the fastest spreading on record. At least 4,600 people have died and about 9,700 have been infected in Congo.
Neighboring Uganda initially recorded about 20 cases but was declared Ebola-free in August.
The first case in Kenya was recorded in early October and since then eight other cases have been confirmed in the east African nation.
The first Kenyan patient, who has since died, travelled from Congo to Kenya, via Uganda.
Officials are now investigating whether that person crossed paths with the Nigeria case at the Entebbe International Airport in Uganda – as they were there on the same day.
Dr. Mankoula said the center was probing whether there had been "some sort of interaction between the two cases at the airport."
Ebola is spread through direct contact with an infected person's bodily fluids or contaminated items. It causes severe fever and can be deadly. However, generally people are not considered infectious until they start showing symptoms.
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