Fresh facts emerged on Wednesday regarding the travel itinerary of the confirmed Ebola virus patient in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, revealing that the index case entered Nigeria aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight earlier this month.
A highly-placed aviation official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as she was not authorised to brief the media on the matter, told Vanguard that the patient arrived in the country on October 3, 2026.
This came on a day an emergency meeting of officials of the health ministry revealed the index case detected in the country carried the Bundibugyo strain of the virus which, according to the World Health Organisation, WHO, has no vaccine or specific treatment.
This is even as the Ugandan government asked Nigeria to provide detailed travel and clinical records of the woman, the index case, insisting she didn’t pick the virus in its territory, since there is no Ebola case in Uganda.
Meanwhile, the two arms of the National Assembly, Senate and House of Representatives, have asked the Federal Government to urgently release money to relevant agencies to confront the disease.
According to the aviation official, the patient landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET333.
The revelation provides critical details for contact-tracing, following an earlier official announcement by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Pate, who confirmed the presence of the virus in the nation’s capital.
Pate had disclosed that the female patient had recently returned to Nigeria on an international flight from Uganda and subsequently spent several days receiving care at a private hospital in Abuja before the infection was formally diagnosed.
She has since been transferred to a designated isolation facility where she is currently receiving treatment.
In response, a multi-agency operation involving the Federal Ministry of Health, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, and the FCT Health and Environmental Services Secretariat has commenced extensive contact-tracing.
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Public health authorities have so far identified 44 close contacts, including healthcare personnel, fellow hospital patients, caregivers and individuals connected to her travel route.
Consequently, the Federal Government has placed health institutions and port health surveillance units across the country on high alert.
The first Ebola case detected in Nigeria is the Bundibugyo strain, an emergency meeting on the issue was told yesterday.
“We did three levels of tests, but all molecular. The strain was Bundibugyo,” Olajumoke Babatunde, Director of the Public Health Laboratory Service at NCDC, said Wednesday.
The World Health Organization, WHO, which also confirmed that it was the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is still neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment.
“This person is actually a diplomat,” another official said, adding the patient had deteriorated into “multi-organ failure”.
The official did not disclose the nationality of the diplomat.
In August, Uganda was declared officially Ebola-free by WHO after recording 20 cases, almost all people who had travelled from the DRC.
In a related development, Uganda has asked Nigeria to provide detailed travel and clinical records of the index case in the country.
The Federal Government had confirmed on Tuesday that the woman recently arrived in Nigeria after travelling from Uganda.
But in a statement, Director-General of Health Services, Uganda Ministry of Health, Prof. Charles Olaro, said the information is required to guide further investigations and determine whether additional contact-tracing was necessary, even as he stressed that the woman’s transit through Uganda did not establish that she contracted the virus there.
The statement, issued in Kampala, said the Ministry of Health is awaiting further information from the Nigerian government to help establish the circumstances surrounding the infection, adding that it would strengthen screening and other public health measures at points of entry in collaboration with relevant agencies.
Preliminary information cited by the Ugandan authorities revealed that the woman, who travelled to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for business, transited through Uganda in early October without showing symptoms, but reportedly developed symptoms after arriving in Nigeria, as the location where she contracted the virus remained under investigation.
The statement, titled “Reported Ebola Case in Nigeria: Ministry Calls for Calm and Vigilance” read: “The Ministry of Health has noted reports of a confirmed Ebola case in Nigeria involving a Nigerian woman who reportedly travelled to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for business.
“Preliminary information indicates that she transited through Uganda in early October without showing symptoms and developed symptoms after arriving in Nigeria. Her transit through Uganda does not establish that she contracted the infection there. The location of exposure remains under investigation.
“The government of Nigeria is yet to provide detailed information on the woman’s travel itinerary and clinical history to guide further investigations and any necessary contact tracing.
“The ministry wishes to clarify that, as of the date of this statement, Uganda has no confirmed active Ebola cases.”
It said limited provisions had been maintained to facilitate humanitarian and diplomatic movements.
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