‘Ebola scientists to probe Nigeria case origin’

LONDON A team of leading Ebola scientists will travel to Nigeria to help investigate how the country’s first patient in more than ‌a decade got infected, Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said. Their task will involve trying to work out how the female patient, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, caught the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. Her travel documents show she had not visited the outbreak epicentre in Democratic Republic of Congo, Kaseya said in an interview in London. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the award-winning Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. Finding out how she became ill matters to ensure that the deadly Bundibugyo outbreak, already the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record, is not spreading silently ⁠in as-yet undiscovered locations, and to help trace and isolate all contacts. “We have so many unknowns,” said Kaseya. “I’m bringing a group of scientists in Abuja because… we need to be led by science.” One of the theories the scientists will investigate is a potential link between the patient in Nigeria and the first case in Kenya, reported earlier this month in a man who had travelled from Congo. On Friday, genomic sequencing showed that the viruses that infected the two patients were closely related. The patient in Nigeria had been on holiday in Uganda and travelled through Entebbe Airport on October 3. The patient in Kenya, who has since died, was likely in the airport at the same time, as their flights were around 40 minutes apart, although they did not depart from the same gate and it is not ‌clear ⁠whether they had any contact, Kaseya said. Kaseya said while genomic sequencing had shown that the viruses were similar, it did not mean that one of the patients had directly infected the other and the patient in Abuja, whose condition is improving, has said she does not remember meeting the Kenya patient.