The United Nations has said it has full confidence in Nigeria’s ability to contain its first confirmed Ebola case and is ready to help prevent the disease from spreading.
UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said this on Wednesday in response to a question from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Dujarric said the detection of the Ebola Bundibugyo virus in Nigeria, the fifth country to report a case in the current outbreak, is a concern. He nonetheless praised the swift response of Nigerian health authorities and their extensive contact tracing.
“We have full confidence in the ability and the capacity of the Nigerian Government’s health authorities to deal with this single case,” he said.
He acknowledged that a case in a new country raises fears of wider spread, saying, “It’s of course concerning that there is a case in a new country.” However, he noted that Nigerian authorities had already begun tracing and monitoring people who may have been exposed to the patient.
Asked whether the UN feared the outbreak could reach more countries or last another year, Dujarric stressed international cooperation. He urged countries to follow international health regulations and work closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“It is also incumbent that countries work together, follow international health regulations, work with the WHO,” he said.
He added that the WHO was created to help countries tackle such public health emergencies and that the agency was “very much on top of it.”
On support for Nigeria, Dujarric said, “We are, as always, ready to assist the Government of Nigeria in any way possible.” He also expressed confidence that WHO officials in the country were in direct contact with national health authorities to coordinate the response.
The UN’s assurance came after Nigeria confirmed on Tuesday an imported Ebola Bundibugyo case in a woman who had recently travelled to Uganda.
According to the WHO, the patient developed symptoms on Oct. 7, sought medical care in Abuja on Oct. 11 and tested positive on Oct. 20. She is being treated in isolation, while Nigerian authorities have identified 44 contacts for monitoring and further investigation.
The case emerged during an outbreak that began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in May and has since spread across borders. The WHO’s latest situation report recorded 9,637 confirmed infections and 4,646 deaths in the DRC as of Oct. 19.
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