Ebola Patient In Nigeria Did Not Travel To DR Congo, Says Swiss Government

The Swiss government has disputed claims by Ugandan authorities that the Ebola patient in Nigeria travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saying she and her husband did not visit the country.

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs made the clarification in a statement to Reuters on Friday, amid conflicting accounts about how the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja contracted the virus.

“She and her husband did not travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the department said.

The clarification contradicts earlier statements by Ugandan authorities, who said the woman had travelled to eastern Congo, where an Ebola outbreak was declared in mid-May.

On Thursday, the Swiss foreign affairs department told Reuters that the woman, whom it identified as a Swiss national, was believed to have contracted the virus while travelling with her husband in Uganda.

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However, Ugandan authorities have maintained that the country currently has no Ebola cases.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) also said on Thursday that they had not received confirmed information indicating that the woman had travelled to Congo.

Uganda recorded 20 Ebola cases in May and June, most of them imported from Congo, before the WHO declared the country Ebola-free in August.

Ugandan government spokesperson Alan Kasujja told Reuters on Thursday that the country had no active Ebola cases, adding that any such development would be made public.

The case in Nigeria, the country’s first reported Ebola case in more than a decade, has raised concerns over the spread of the outbreak across the continent.

According to the Africa CDC, the outbreak has spread across four African countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria, with about 4,700 deaths reported.