Nigeria Confirms First Ebola Case in Diplomat’s Wife Returning from Uganda Holiday

Nigeria’s first confirmed Ebola patient is the wife of a diplomat who contracted the virus during a holiday in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, according to Jean Kaseya, Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The 42-year-old woman, a Ugandan national residing in Abuja, developed symptoms on 6 October, three days after returning to Nigeria on 3 October. She initially sought treatment at a private hospital, believing she had malaria, before being admitted to a second private facility on 11 October when her condition failed to improve.

Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Pate confirmed the patient spent two and a half weeks in Kampala before travelling to Abuja via a two-hour stopover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She tested positive for Ebola on Tuesday and is currently stable and responding to treatment.

Health authorities have identified 44 contacts, though not all were in close proximity. Officials cast a wide net to contain potential transmission broadly. None of the identified contacts, including the person who travelled with the patient, have developed symptoms. The woman has remained in Abuja since her return.

Public health authorities were alerted on 19 October after the patient’s condition deteriorated. Her diagnosis was confirmed the following day after three laboratory tests. Ebola has an incubation period of two to 21 days and spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals or contaminated materials.

Conflicting accounts have emerged regarding the patient’s travel history. Uganda’s Ministry of Health previously described her as a Nigerian national who travelled to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for business and only transited through Uganda. Ugandan authorities maintained the country had no active confirmed Ebola cases and that her transit did not establish infection origin there.

Nigerian authorities are collaborating with Uganda, Ethiopia, and the Africa CDC to establish the complete travel history and determine where she contracted the infection. Mr Pate emphasized solidarity with Uganda, while Mr Kaseya called for greater information-sharing among African countries and urged Western nations to avoid travel restrictions, stressing that international collaboration is essential to containment.

The case emerges amid an ongoing Ebola outbreak linked to the Bundibugyo virus in the DRC, where the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported more than 9,500 cases and 4,602 deaths as of 19 October. Kenya has confirmed nine imported cases in a single cluster, with the first patient travelling from DRC through Uganda. Uganda recorded infections earlier in 2026 but subsequently declared its outbreak over.

Health authorities advise the public to maintain hand hygiene, avoid contact with bodily fluids of suspected cases, and promptly report possible exposure. Nigeria draws on its 2014 experience, when an infected traveller from Liberia sparked an outbreak resulting in 20 cases and eight deaths. The World Health Organisation declared Nigeria free of Ebola transmission that October after 42 days without a new case.

Mr Pate expressed confidence in the country’s containment capacity, citing improvements in disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, and trained epidemiologists since 2014. “We have done it in 2014, and we have good public health institutions,” he said.

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