Nigeria Confirms Ebola Case in Swiss Diplomat's Wife as Origins Remain Disputed

A dispute over a single traveler's route has clouded the response to Nigeria's first confirmed Ebola case in more than ten years. Health officials in Africa are scrambling to determine how the patient contracted the virus, a question that grows more urgent as the outbreak expands to a fourth country.

The Swiss foreign ministry stated on Friday that the patient is the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat stationed in Abuja. According to the ministry, the woman did not visit the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the epidemic began in mid-May. Instead, Swiss officials believe she contracted the virus while traveling with her husband in Uganda.

This account contradicts earlier reports from Ugandan authorities, who said the patient had traveled to eastern DR Congo. A Ugandan government spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the country had no active Ebola cases and would publish information if that changed. The conflict in narratives raises concerns about the ability to contain a spread that is already the most geographically widespread on record.

The World Health Organization continues to investigate the source of the infection. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO Ebola incident manager in DR Congo, stated via video link from Geneva that her team has no information indicating the patient visited that country. Meanwhile, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is examining a potential link to a case in Kenya.

Both patients traveled through Entebbe airport in Uganda on October 3, according to Dr. Wessam Mankoula, the organization's head of emergency preparedness and response. Smallwood noted that a connection is possible but requires a comparison of timing between the airport exposure and the onset of the Nigerian patient's symptoms to determine likelihood.

Experts remain skeptical of the airport theory. Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on the WHO's emergency committee, described the hypothesis as very speculative without evidence of shared space. She argued that random presence at a large airport does not constitute a supported epidemiological link by current standards.

Nigeria's Health Minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, said the case remains contained as contact tracing continues. He stated that the goal is to prevent the virus from moving into local communities. The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, for which no approved treatment or vaccine exists. First announced on May 15, the epidemic has infected more than 9,500 people and killed nearly half of them, making it the deadliest in DR Congo's history.