Nigeria has confirmed its first case of Ebola, in the capital, Abuja, while Kenya has confirmed a ninth case linked to the same regional outbreak. Both announcements came on 20 October. Health officials in each country say the cases are being contained, but the spread to a second and third country outside the epicentre has raised alarm about the outbreak moving across the continent.
Nigeria
Health Minister Muhammad Pate said the patient is a woman who travelled to Nigeria from Uganda. Her symptoms began on 7 October, she was admitted to a private hospital in Abuja on 11 October and was then diagnosed. Authorities are tracing 44 people who had contact with her, and Pate said everything possible is being done to contain the case.
Kenya
Kenya's health ministry said its ninth patient is a 24-year-old man who was already in quarantine and is a close relative of the country's first patient. That patient came from the Democratic Republic of Congo through Uganda and died at a Nairobi hospital on 5 October. Patrick Amoth, the director-general for health, said all nine cases belong to one cluster and that there is no evidence of transmission outside it. Eight patients are stable. Of 135 contacts, 134 have been traced and quarantined, and no infections have occurred inside quarantine facilities. Contacts who stay well through the 21-day monitoring period can go home from 25 October. Kenya has not restricted travel, trade or public gatherings.
The wider outbreak
In Congo, more than 9,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths have been recorded since May, which a European disease-control body ranks as the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record. The strain involved is Bundibugyo, for which there is no licensed vaccine or specific treatment. Uganda reported cases earlier and was later declared free of the virus.
