Ebola: Nigeria Monitors 54 Contacts as NCDC Warns Outbreak Not Over
Nigeria is monitoring 54 primary contacts linked to its confirmed Ebola case, even after the index patient and her husband were evacuated to Switzerland, as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the country is not yet out of the woods.
The NCDC Director-General, Dr Jide Idris, said on Monday that the latest contact was the e-hailing driver who took the patient to her first hospital in Abuja, identified as officials pieced together more of her movements.
“As it is now, yesterday was 54, right? One has left; the index case has left, so we had 53. Today, we got one more suspected case contact, who actually was the Uber driver who drove her before to the first hospital,” Idris said on national television.
The contacts are being monitored for 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola. More than 40 of them are in quarantine facilities in Abuja, while six are under home-based self-quarantine because their risk of infection is considered low. Those at home get regular calls and temperature checks morning and evening, and three people who were retested after developing symptoms returned negative results.
Nigeria currently has no confirmed active Ebola case following the evacuation, Idris said, but contact monitoring remains critical. “We are not out of the woods yet until we are sure that all the contacts have been followed up. Because the index case is out doesn’t mean that we don’t have an active positive case,” he said, with secondary contacts to be traced as interviews continue.
Under World Health Organisation criteria, Nigeria may declare the outbreak over on December 7, 2026, if no further confirmed or probable cases are detected. The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, said that date remained provisional, pending validation of the 42-day countdown by the NCDC and the WHO, and that any new confirmed case would trigger a fresh countdown.
The index patient, a 42-year-old Swiss national, left Abuja on Monday aboard a medical aircraft after showing significant clinical improvement. Pate said she was stable, conscious, communicating and had laboratory results approaching baseline levels, but cautioned that improvement did not necessarily mean she was no longer infectious, and that strict protocols were maintained throughout the evacuation. Her spouse, who tested negative and remained asymptomatic, travelled with her.
Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health confirmed that the patient is being treated at Geneva University Hospital while her husband is in isolation at Zurich University Hospital, saying the case poses no health risk to the country. Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider thanked Pate by telephone and commended the Nigerian doctors who cared for the two Swiss nationals.
The NCDC has explained why the government approved the evacuation, citing a diplomatic request from the Swiss Embassy, human rights considerations and compliance with the International Health Regulations. “I won’t use the word ‘snuck out’. That’s a no-brainer. It is the first time something like that has happened,” Idris said, describing the infection control measures maintained from the treatment hospital to the aircraft. He noted that the patient had tested positive twice before departure and that her husband tested negative.
Idris also cautioned Nigerians against relying on herbal mixtures to prevent or treat Ebola, saying there is no established evidence that such preparations work and warning of possible side effects. Treatment manages symptoms while the immune system fights the infection, he explained, as no drugs target the Bundibugyo strain behind the outbreak.
The Academy of Medical Sciences has urged health authorities to sustain contact tracing, warning that the index case’s departure does not eliminate the risk among the contacts, who include health workers and domestic staff. In a statement signed by Emeritus Prof. Osato Giwa-Osagie, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru and Prof. Boaz Adegboro, the Academy noted that roughly 13 days elapsed between the onset of the patient’s symptoms and her testing, during which she visited more than one private health facility, exposing health workers and showing a low index of suspicion for viral haemorrhagic fever despite the public health emergency declared in May.
The Academy called on the Federal Government to establish at least one high-level isolation and treatment centre in each of the six geopolitical zones, supported by trained personnel and access to investigational therapeutics, and demanded fully funded welfare for contacts in quarantine. “Nigeria contained Ebola in 2014 through speed, discipline and the sacrifice of its health workers. The same qualities are needed now,” it said.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Adewole Adebayo, rejected any attempt to delay the 2027 general elections or suspend campaigns over the outbreak, accusing the ruling party of exploiting a public health concern for political advantage. “One single instance of Ebola is not enough to talk about an epidemic,” he said at his party’s campaign council dinner in Abuja.