A Swiss woman being treated for Ebola in Nigeria was medically evacuated to Switzerland with her husband Monday, officials said, as Nigerian authorities continued monitoring 52 people who had been in contact with her.
Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Pate said the woman, the country’s first case in the current outbreak, left the capital, Abuja, early Monday with his approval. Her condition had improved significantly, and she was stable, conscious and able to communicate, he said.
“This does not mean she is not still infectious, hence the strict protocols in place,” Pate wrote on X. Her husband, a Swiss diplomat in Nigeria, has shown no symptoms.
Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health said the couple arrived Monday on a medical evacuation flight. The woman was being treated at Geneva University Hospital, while her husband was in isolation at Zurich University Hospital. The agency said both hospitals were equipped to care for them and that there was no risk to the Swiss public.
The World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, Mohamed Janabi, said the evacuation was arranged because the couple are Swiss citizens and that Nigerian medical teams had stabilized the woman after treating her through the acute phase of the illness.
Nigeria will continue monitoring 52 other contacts, Janabi said.
“With the evacuation of the patient and her husband, Nigeria currently has no Ebola cases,” he said, stressing that vigilance remained critical.
Pate said containment measures remained in place and urged Nigerians to remain vigilant.
The woman tested positive after returning to Abuja from Uganda. Nigerian authorities said Friday they had yet to establish how she contracted the virus.
Switzerland’s foreign ministry told The Associated Press last week that she had not visited Congo and was believed to have been infected while traveling to Uganda with her husband.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the first patients in Nigeria and Kenya had both traveled through Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on Oct. 3. Uganda had previously reported Ebola cases but later declared itself free of the virus.
Kenya has recorded nine cases, including two deaths, since confirming its first case earlier this month.
On Monday, Kenya released 20 people from quarantine following their exposure to the virus as contacts of the country’s first case, while 98 others were expected to be released starting next Tuesday.
“Each of the 20 contacts was assessed against the release criteria, including 21 days without any symptoms since their last exposure,” the Kenyan Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The spread of Ebola beyond Congo has heightened longstanding fears among health authorities about the rapid transmission of the rare Bundibugyo virus.
The latest figures from Congo’s health ministry show more than 9,900 cases, including more than 4,800 deaths, since the outbreak began in May.
The WHO has said the outbreak is the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record and is on track to surpass the death toll of the deadliest: West Africa’s 2014-2016 outbreak, which killed 11,000 people. Nigeria was among the countries affected, recording 20 cases before its outbreak was declared over after three months.
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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Evelyne Musambi contributed from Nairobi, Kenya.