Swiss Government Disputes Ebola Patient’s DR Congo Travel

By Staff, Agencies

The Swiss government has denied that a woman diagnosed with Nigeria’s first Ebola case in more than a decade traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), contradicting an earlier account from Ugandan authorities about her movements before the infection was detected.

The patient is a 42-year-old Ugandan-born Swiss national married to a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja. She is believed to have contracted the virus while traveling with her husband in Uganda, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs told Reuters on Thursday.

Uganda’s Health Ministry initially described the woman as a Nigerian national who had traveled to eastern DR Congo on business before passing through Uganda. The ministry said the source of her infection remained unknown and emphasized that Uganda had no active Ebola cases.

However, the Swiss government subsequently denied that she had visited DR Congo. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) also said they had received no confirmed information indicating that she had traveled there.

“The information supplied to WHO did not include travel to another country (other than Uganda),” WHO representative in Nigeria Pavel Ursu said.

The Africa CDC is also investigating whether the woman may have come into contact with a Kenyan Ebola patient, as both reportedly passed through Uganda’s Entebbe airport on October 3.

Nigeria confirmed the infection on October 20. According to the BBC, the woman returned to Nigeria on October 3 after spending approximately two and a half weeks in Uganda. The WHO said she developed symptoms four days later and sought medical attention on October 11.

She remains in isolation and is showing signs of improvement. Her husband has also been isolated but has not developed symptoms.

Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate urged the public not to panic, saying there was “no evidence that it has gone into the communities.” Authorities have intensified contact tracing and monitoring to prevent further transmission.

Uganda recorded 20 Ebola cases earlier this year, most of them imported from DR Congo, before the country was declared free of the disease in August.