Banishing Ebola from Nigeria’s shores

FOR some weeks now, Nigerians have been thrown into a frenzy following news of an Ebola case. While an initial shroud covered the patient’s identity, she was later revealed to be a 42-year-old Uganda-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja. She was diagnosed and tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus on October 20, after spending about a week at a private clinic in Abuja. While her husband reportedly did not test positive for the virus, the woman was believed to have contracted it in October while the couple travelled to Kampala, Uganda. Ugandan health authorities, however, immediately denied the claim, saying the country no longer had any patient with the disease. This prompted Nigerian health authorities to place dozens of identified secondary and tertiary contacts under close monitoring in a bid to prevent its spread.

This week, the diplomat’s wife was medically evacuated via an air ambulance from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, to the Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland. Her husband did not show symptoms of the virus, but was placed in isolation at the University Hospital, Zurich. Earlier, on June 9 this year, President Bola Tinubu had approved the sum of ₦10 billion as emergency funding to combat the virus. He appointed his Chief of Staff, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, as chairman of a Presidential Task Force on Ebola Virus Disease Preparedness and Emerging Public Health Threats. The sum was meant to boost the operational readiness of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and support public health safety measures. It was also targeted at ensuring enhanced screening at international airports, QR-based health declarations for travellers from high-risk regions, and the activation of isolation centres in Lagos and Abuja. In addition, it was aimed at providing emergency funding to support laboratory testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and public health tracking.

Since its first emergence in 1976 during simultaneous outbreaks in Nzara, South Sudan, and Yambuku, where the virus took its name from the Ebola River, located near the village in Yambukuin Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the virus has taken a huge toll on humanity. In that 1976 discovery, two distinct strains, namely the Sudan virus and Ebola virus (Zaire), emerged. The then Zaire strain showed a comparatively high fatality rate. By the time the Ebola virus struck again between 1994 and 1996, the strain it unleashed was the Taï Forest virus, which originated from Côte d’Ivoire after it infected a scientist performing a necropsy on a chimpanzee. Virginia and Texas in the United States also recorded the Reston virus strain of Ebola, said to have emerged from quarantine facilities housing imported animals from the Philippines. The strain affected non-human primates. Between 2000 and 2001, a Sudan virus outbreak emerged in Uganda which led to about 400 cases, an outcome of comingling during traditional funeral and care practices in the country, while between 2014 and 2016, Ebola’s largest and most complex outbreak in history took shape in Guinea. It quickly spread through Liberia and Sierra Leone, resulting in more than 28,600 reported cases and 11,300 deaths.

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Nigeria was affected by that strain when a Liberian, Mr Patrick Sawyer, arrived in the country with the disease. The United States and Europe were also affected as international travellers moved from one point to another. Similarly, from 2018 to 2020, Ebola’s second-largest outbreak was recorded in the eastern DRC provinces of Kivu and Ituri. Today, from 2025 till date, the DRC faces its second-largest and fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record through the Bundibugyo virus strain. Uganda, another country earlier associated with the virus strain, is officially declared Ebola-free. It had earlier reported 20 confirmed cases, two confirmed deaths and one probable death. France has also reported an index case.

Nigeria must repeat its yeoman feat of 2014 when the Ebola virus sneaked into its borders. Failing to contain it would make a mockery of the memory of Dr Stella Adadevoh, who in conjunction with her colleagues at First Consultants Medical Centre, Lagos, made gallant moves to treat and isolate Sawyer and later died of the virus, and the efforts of the Goodluck Jonathan government, which received applause from even the international community for its gallantry. The Federal Government must redouble its efforts and counter any attempt to make the latest development another cash cow. Already, there have been brickbats between the ruling party and the opposition parties over the management of the contingency fund earlier released to the Gbajabiamila committee for combating the virus. While accountability is called for, playing politics with the lives of Nigerians is unwarranted at this point, and indeed at any other point in time. The country is faced with a national emergency and must act as such. The Nigerian Immigration Service and the Nigerian Customs Service, in alliance with the health authorities, must track inbound passengers with greater vigilance. Officers at those points are notorious for a preoccupation with the solicitation of bribes. That must stop. Nigerians must collectively be on their guard to stave off the deadly disease.