Nigeria's first ebola case sparks shock and urgent concern nationwide

The first Ebola case detected in Nigeria is the Bundibugyo strain, which is behind a major DR Congo outbreak, and the patient is a diplomat, an emergency meeting heard on Wednesday.

The case in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda to the capital Abuja on October 3, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said.

Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May, the deadly viral haemorrhagic fever has spread to several countries across the continent, including to neighbouring Uganda. "We did three levels of tests, but all molecular. The strain was Bundibugyo," Olajumoke Babatunde, director of the public health laboratory service at the NCDC said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) 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 has deteriorated into "multi-organ failure". The director general of Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, warned on Tuesday of "an extremely serious threat" as Kenya also declared its ninth Ebola case.

In several months, the DRC's Ebola epidemic has become the deadliest in the country's history, killing 4,381 people out of more than 9,000 confirmed cases, according to the health authorities.

Nigeria has identified 44 contacts that are being monitored, while intensifying efforts to find other people who may have been exposed. The WHO said in a statement that infection prevention and control was being "ramped up" at the private hospital where the patient sought care.