Nigeria’s disease-control agency has identified 53 people who came into contact with an Ebola patient in the Federal Capital Territory, placing them under a 21-day monitoring regime and offering financial support during quarantine.
Key takeaways
- The identified Ebola patient is a 42-year-old woman married to an employee of the Swiss Embassy.
- She arrived in Nigeria from Uganda via Addis Ababa on October 3 and began showing symptoms four days later.
- Of the 53 primary contacts, 47 were staff at the hospital where she received treatment.
- Each quarantined contact will receive N100,000 a week to cover food and basic needs.
- A separate suspected Ebola case in Rivers State returned a negative test result.
Contact tracing and quarantine support
The woman developed fever, diarrhoea and body pain on October 7, after returning from Uganda through Addis Ababa. Health authorities classified her as the index case in the Federal Capital Territory.
Dr Jide Idris, director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency had traced 53 first-level contacts. The group comprises 47 healthcare workers from the facility where the patient was treated, as well as six other individuals.
The additional contacts include the woman’s husband, her driver and chef, along with three medical personnel who handled her case in the emergency department.
Authorities will provide N100,000 weekly to every person being quarantined after some contacts raised concerns that isolation would prevent them from operating their businesses.
“We have traced 53 Ebola contacts. We are providing N100,000 to each person per week just to maintain their comfort and feeding, because they were complaining,” Idris said.
Further monitoring and Rivers State test
All identified contacts will remain under observation for 21 days, the standard incubation-period monitoring window for Ebola. Contact-tracing teams will also seek to identify and follow any secondary contacts.
In a separate development, a suspected Ebola patient in Rivers State tested negative for the virus. Idris said the individual’s health had improved significantly after an earlier report that the patient had suffered multiple-organ failure.
