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Health

Ebola scientists to probe Nigeria case origin after genomic link to Kenya patient

Africa CDC is sending a team of leading Ebola scientists to Nigeria to investigate how the country's first patient in more than a decade was infected, after genomic sequencing linked her virus closely to Kenya's first case.

By James Calloway · · 2 min read

A team of leading Ebola scientists will travel to Nigeria to investigate how the country’s first patient in more than a decade became infected, Africa CDC director-general Jean Kaseya has said.

The patient, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, caught the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, Kaseya told Reuters in an interview in London. Her travel documents show she had not visited the outbreak epicentre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Finding out how she became ill matters, Kaseya said, to ensure the outbreak is not spreading silently in as-yet undiscovered locations and to help trace and isolate all contacts. “We have so many unknowns,” he said. “I’m bringing a group of scientists in Abuja because… we need to be led by science.”

One theory the team will investigate is a potential link to Kenya’s first case, reported earlier this month in a man who had travelled from Congo and has since died. Genomic sequencing on Friday showed the viruses that infected the two patients were closely related.

The Nigeria patient had been on holiday in Uganda and travelled through Entebbe Airport on 3 October. The Kenya patient was likely in the airport at the same time, their flights around 40 minutes apart, although they did not depart from the same gate and it is not clear whether they had any contact.

Kaseya stressed that similar sequencing does not mean one patient directly infected the other, and said the Abuja patient’s condition is improving. She has said she does not remember meeting the Kenya patient.

The team will be led by Congolese expert Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the co-discoverer of Ebola, and will also examine more sequencing data to work out where the Kenya patient was infected. Kaseya said all countries involved are now willing to collaborate, after tension last week when Uganda’s government insisted the Abuja patient had been to Congo while Nigerian authorities suggested she was infected in Uganda, which has been Ebola-free since August.

The Bundibugyo outbreak in Congo has now caused almost 10,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths, and has spread to Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for Ebola Bundibugyo.

Sources

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