Nigeria declares all 62 Ebola contacts symptom-free following 21-day observation
Health officials in Nigeria declared the end of contact tracing for a Swiss woman who brought the virus to the country, though the official outbreak timeline continues.
By Rebecca Lewis ·
Nigerian health officials completed a 21-day observation period for 62 people exposed to the country's first confirmed Ebola case in over a decade. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday that none of the monitored individuals developed the disease. The last contact was discharged from observation without showing symptoms of infection.
The index case involved a Swiss woman who traveled to Uganda before returning to Nigeria. Authorities confirmed her diagnosis on October 20. She and her husband were evacuated to Switzerland, where she fully recovered and was released from the hospital. Her husband did not contract the virus during the trip.
During the monitoring window, 13 of the 62 contacts reported symptoms such as fever. All 13 tested negative for the Ebola virus. The NCDC noted that clearing the contact list does not automatically end the outbreak status. International guidelines require a 42-day countdown from the recovery or departure of the last confirmed patient before an official end-of-outbreak declaration can be issued.
The virus is spreading through the region from an initial outbreak in Ituri province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cases have since appeared in eight other provinces in the DRC. Neighboring Uganda, as well as France, Kenya, and Nigeria, have reported cases linked to this transmission chain.
The DRC government data shows this is the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record. More than 11,000 people have been infected and more than 5,000 have died. The specific strain causing the current outbreak is the Bundibugyo variant. No approved vaccines or treatments exist for this specific type of the virus.
Nigerian authorities also investigated seven other Ebola alerts across five states in the past three weeks. All seven potential cases tested negative. The virus spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, such as blood or vomit, or through contaminated items like bedding and clothing.
