Ebola patients in Nigeria and Kenya may have crossed paths at Uganda airport, officials say

Health officials are investigating whether Ebola patients in Nigeria and Kenya may have crossed paths at Entebbe airport in Uganda on 3 October, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Thursday.

Dr Wessam Mankoula, the agency's head of emergency preparedness and response, called an airport interaction "one of the possible scenarios", but stressed that no link between the two cases had been established. Investigators are examining whether the two infections have a common source.

Nigeria is dealing with its first Ebola case in more than a decade, while Kenya has confirmed nine infections, including one death.

What we know about the two patients

The Nigerian patient is a 42-year-old Ugandan-born woman who lives in Abuja. The WHO says she is being treated in isolation and is improving. Switzerland's foreign ministry confirmed to Reuters that she is married to a Swiss diplomat; her husband, who travelled with her to Uganda, is also in isolation but has no symptoms.

She returned to Nigeria on 3 October after about two and a half weeks in Uganda, travelling via Addis Ababa with a two-hour stopover. She developed symptoms four days after arriving in Abuja, sought treatment at two private health facilities and tested positive for Ebola on 20 October.

The Kenyan patient had travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo through Uganda and arrived in Nairobi on 3 October. He later died, becoming Kenya's first recorded Ebola death in the current outbreak.

Source of infection still unknown

The WHO said it was too early to determine where the Nigerian woman became infected. "The source of exposure is still not known. The travel history of the patient is still being pieced together," said Dr Patrick Otim, a WHO emergency response official. He said interviews with her had been limited while she was in hospital.

Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention is carrying out genomic sequencing, which could show whether the infection is related to other cases. "Genomic sequencing is given a high priority," said Dr Pavel Ursu, the WHO's representative in Nigeria.

Ugandan health officials previously said the woman had travelled to eastern DR Congo for business, where the current outbreak began, but the WHO, Africa CDC and Nigeria's health ministry said they had not received verified information confirming this. Uganda says it has no confirmed active cases.

Contacts and quarantine

Africa CDC said Nigeria had identified more potentially exposed people than the 44 contacts initially reported — mostly healthcare workers, plus a few family members. Dr Mankoula said high-risk contacts were being quarantined but declined to give an updated figure.

In Kenya, the first group of people quarantined over possible exposure will begin returning home on Sunday after 21 days of monitoring without symptoms. Health Director-General Dr Patrick Amoth said all nine confirmed infections were linked to the first patient, with no evidence of wider community transmission. "We are not out of the woods," he warned. The remaining eight patients are in isolation and responding well to treatment.

Border and vigilance

Dr Otim warned that the long, porous border between DR Congo and Uganda made it difficult to screen everyone, as many people use unofficial crossing points. The WHO's Africa director, Dr Mohamed Janabi, called for "regional vigilance" and urged countries to strengthen surveillance and protect frontline health workers.

Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person, or with contaminated objects; it is not airborne. People are not infectious before symptoms develop, which include fever, severe weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Source: BBC World.