The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that Africa is facing an increasingly “complex” Ebola outbreak after the virus spread from eastern Africa to Nigeria, marking the first reported case in the western part of the continent.
Nigeria announced on Tuesday that an imported case of the Bundibugyo strain had been detected. The variant is responsible for the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The virus was detected in the wife of a diplomat who travelled from Uganda to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
Nigeria’s Health Minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, said contacts of the woman had been traced since her arrival in the country earlier this month, with several individuals considered at high risk placed in full quarantine at a healthcare facility.
“The imported case is under control so far. We have no evidence of transmission into the community,” Pate said at a press conference in Abuja.
“Our focus is therefore on contact tracing and ensuring we know exactly where they are,” he added.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is the fourth country affected by the outbreak. Kenya, in eastern Africa, has reported nine Ebola cases since Oct 6.
The current outbreak began in the DRC and has become one of the deadliest in the country’s history, killing more than 4,000 people out of over 9,000 confirmed cases since mid-May, according to health authorities.
“We are facing a more complex outbreak landscape,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Janabi during an online media briefing.
The patient in Nigeria arrived in Abuja on Oct 3 after staying in Uganda since Sept 16, 2026.
According to an emergency meeting of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) on Wednesday, she travelled to Abuja on an Ethiopian Airlines flight, transiting through Addis Ababa.
The case has revived memories of the devastating Ebola outbreak that swept across several West African countries between late 2013 and 2016, killing more than 11,000 people.
