LONDON / ABUJA - 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 Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director-General Jean Kaseya said in an interview with Reuters in London, reported on Monday, October 26.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld, Oct 26

The patient is a Ugandan-born woman, the wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, who tested positive for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. Her travel documents show she had not visited the outbreak epicentre in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kaseya said — which is what makes her case a mystery investigators need to solve.

"We have so many unknowns," Kaseya said. "I'm bringing a group of scientists in Abuja because... we need to be led by science." Finding out how she became ill matters, he said, to make sure the outbreak is not spreading silently in places not yet discovered, and to trace and isolate all contacts.

Almost 10,000 casesBundibugyo Ebola cases in DR Congo in the current outbreak, Reuters reports
More than 4,600 deathsDeaths in Congo from the outbreak, now the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record
3 other countriesThe outbreak has spread from Congo to Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda
October 3Date the Nigeria patient travelled through Uganda's Entebbe Airport

One theory the scientists will investigate is a possible link with Kenya's first case, reported earlier this month in a man who had travelled from Congo and has since died. On Friday, genomic sequencing showed the viruses that infected the two patients were closely related, Kaseya said. The Nigeria patient had been on holiday in Uganda and passed through Entebbe Airport on October 3; the Kenya patient was likely in the airport at the same time, with 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.

Source: Reuters via GhanaMMA summary, Oct 26

Kaseya was careful not to overstate the link: sequencing showing similar viruses does not mean one patient directly infected the other, and the Abuja patient, whose condition is improving, has said she does not remember meeting the Kenya patient. Investigators are not excluding any option, including indirect contact through another person. Ebola spreads through close contact with the bodily fluids of a person with symptoms, according to the World Health Organization.

What is solid

  • Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya confirmed a scientist team will go to Abuja, led by Ebola co-discoverer Jean-Jacques Muyembe (Reuters).
  • Genomic sequencing showed the Nigeria and Kenya patients' viruses were closely related (Africa CDC via Reuters).
  • The Nigeria patient had not visited the Congo outbreak epicentre, per her travel documents (Africa CDC).
  • Nigeria's disease control agency said on October 25 that contact tracing and monitoring were continuing.

What is only claimed

  • Whether the two patients met or infected each other at Entebbe Airport — not established; flights were about 40 minutes apart from different gates.
  • Where the Kenya patient was infected — the team will examine more sequencing data before concluding.

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 had not and was infected in Uganda, which has been Ebola-free since August. The Muyembe-led team will also examine more sequencing data to work out where the Kenyan patient was infected. There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for Ebola Bundibugyo, Reuters noted.