Jean Kaseya, director-general of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says the centre will deploy a team of leading Ebola scientists to Nigeria to investigate how the country’s first confirmed case in more than a decade contracted the virus.
Kaseya said the team would investigate how the Bundibugyo strain infected the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat stationed in Abuja. He noted that her travel documents showed she had not visited the outbreak epicentre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The team will be led by Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a Congolese virologist and one of the scientists credited with discovering Ebola.
In an interview with Reuters in London, Kaseya said identifying the source of infection was critical to determining whether the virus was circulating undetected in other locations and ensuring all potentially exposed contacts were traced and isolated.
“We have so many unknowns. I’m bringing a group of scientists in Abuja because we need to be led by science,” Kaseya said.
The investigation follows disagreements over the possible origin of Nigeria’s case. Uganda’s government insisted the woman had travelled to the DRC, while Nigerian authorities indicated that she had not visited the country and may have contracted the virus in Uganda.
Uganda declared itself free of Ebola in August, adding to the uncertainty surrounding the source of the Nigerian infection.
The DG said one of the possibilities under investigation is a potential link between Nigeria’s case and Kenya’s first reported Ebola patient, a man who had travelled from the DRC and died after contracting the virus.
The Nigerian patient had travelled to Uganda for a holiday and passed through Entebbe International Airport on October 3. The Kenyan patient was believed to have been at the airport around the same time, with their flights separated by approximately 40 minutes.
However, Kaseya said the two passengers did not depart from the same gate, and investigators have not established whether they came into contact with each other,
He cautioned that the genetic similarity between the viruses did not establish that either patient directly infected the other.
According to him, the woman, whose condition is improving, has also said she does not remember meeting the Kenyan patient.
Kaseya, however said they were not excluding any options, including that there may have been indirect contact through another person
Kaseya informed that the investigation would examine additional genomic sequencing data to establish where the Kenyan patient contracted the virus and determine whether the two cases share a common source.
Kaseya also said the countries involved were now willing to cooperate in the investigation, easing tensions that had complicated discussions over the patient’s travel history.
The investigation is expected to help authorities reconstruct the transmission chain, identify possible undetected infections and strengthen measures to prevent further spread.
