Nigeria’s disease control agency has flagged two new suspected Ebola cases in the country’s North-East, just days after Africa’s most populous nation confirmed its first infection in the current outbreak.
Main image: DGBN graphic. Photo: CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
In an update on Saturday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said both people had been isolated, samples were undergoing laboratory testing, and contact identification and listing were under way.
Suspected, not confirmed
The agency was clear that a suspected case is not a confirmed one. Whether either person has Ebola will depend on the laboratory results, and the NCDC said it would share further information as verified details become available. It did not name the states involved.
The public has been urged to keep up good hand hygiene, practise enhanced sanitation and follow guidance from health authorities.
How Nigeria got here
Nigeria confirmed its first case of Ebola disease caused by the Bundibugyo virus on 20 October. The patient, a woman who travelled from Uganda to Abuja on 3 October, was tested after officials learned of her travel history. Health authorities identified 44 contacts, most of them health workers, according to Al Jazeera.
The Bundibugyo strain has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment. The wider outbreak is centred on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 9,000 cases and 4,000 deaths have been recorded since mid-May, and it has also reached Uganda and Kenya.
Why it matters
Nigeria contained its 2014 Ebola outbreak within three months, with 20 infections and eight deaths, a response still held up as a model across Africa. With more than 200 million people and busy travel links to the diaspora in the UK, US and beyond, how fast the NCDC clears or confirms these two cases will be watched closely well beyond West Africa.
Read more: Kenya confirms second Ebola case as WHO says contact tracing is working and Ebola outbreak in DR Congo becomes deadliest in its history.