The World Health Organization (WHO) was not told that Nigeria's Ebola patient had travelled to Congo, the WHO's representative in Nigeria, Pavel Ursu, said on Thursday, after Uganda said she had visited the country where the current outbreak was first declared in mid-May.

Source: Reuters, Oct 22

Nigerian health authorities have said the country's first Ebola case in more than a decade involved a Ugandan woman who had recently arrived from a trip to Uganda. Uganda's health ministry said the woman had also travelled to Congo, where the outbreak has since grown into the fastest-spreading on record, according to Reuters reporting.

Ursu told an online press conference: "The information supplied to WHO did not include travel to another country (other than Uganda)." He added: "The facts which we have received is that the patient returned to Abuja on October 3 being away from September 16 in Uganda."

Ursu said the focus in Nigeria was now on containing the viral infection, and that the patient remained hospitalised, with her biochemical markers improving.

WHO emergency response manager Patrick Otim said on Thursday the source of her infection was still unknown, as health authorities were working to piece together her travel history. One issue under investigation, Otim said, is which health facilities the woman visited in Abuja after the onset of her symptoms and before her hospitalisation on October 9.

Jean Kaseya, director of Africa's top public health agency, Africa CDC, told Reuters on Wednesday that the patient, described as the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat, arrived in Abuja after a two-week holiday in Uganda. The conflicting accounts of whether Congo was part of that trip have not been resolved in Thursday's statements.