Nigeria’s First Ebola Case Makes Africa’s Outbreak ‘Complex,’ WHO Says
Nigeria’s first Ebola case has pushed the outbreak into West Africa, the World Health Organization’s Africa chief said Thursday. Regional director Mohamed Janabi told an online briefing that the continent now faces “a more complex outbreak landscape.” Nigeria announced on Tuesday an imported infection of the Bundibugyo strain in a woman, a diplomat with a history of travel to Uganda.
Nigeria is the fourth African country affected and the first in the West. Kenya has reported nine cases since October 6. In DR Congo, the outbreak is the deadliest in the country’s history, with 4,381 deaths among more than 9,000 confirmed cases since mid-May, according to health authorities.
A trial of the Ervebo vaccine is underway in eastern Congo. The jab is approved for the Zaire strain, and researchers want to know whether it also works against the Bundibugyo strain, which has no licensed vaccine or treatment. In August, WHO said 70,000 doses had been approved for Congo: about 50,000 for frontline and health workers and 20,000 for the trial.
Nigeria’s first Ebola case was imported, which ties the new spread to travel rather than to an outbreak that began inside the country. It also revives memories of 2014, when the virus killed more than 11,000 people across West Africa between late 2013 and 2016.
Nigeria contained its own outbreak that year, and that record has raised confidence in its ability to respond. The harder problem is medical. With no approved vaccine or treatment for this strain, the Ervebo vaccine trial is the main route to a protective tool.
Watch for further imported cases after Nigeria’s first Ebola case, especially among travellers from affected countries. The trial will show whether the Ervebo vaccine protects against Bundibugyo. Whether Nigeria can repeat its 2014 containment will be the clearest test of the response.
