By Omeiza Ajayi
Fresh facts emerged, yesterday, 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.
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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 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.
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.
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.
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