It's not who you might expect. Nigeria's first Ebola case in over a decade isn't a returning aid worker from Congo, it's the wife of a Swiss embassy staffer in Abuja, and she never set foot in the DRC.

Here's what we know, as confirmed to cbinews.tv:

According to the Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern on Friday, the patient is a Swiss woman, married to a Swiss member of staff at the embassy in Abuja.

She's been symptomatic and hospitalised for about a week at a private clinic in the capital. Her husband is in isolation but has shown no symptoms so far. The other 25 embassy staff, eight Swiss and 17 local colleagues, are doing well and don't need to isolate, following advice from Nigeria's health ministry and the WHO.

The couple had travelled together to Uganda about two weeks ago, where she is believed to have picked up the infection. Crucially, Bern stressed: neither of them travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nigeria's CDC says she flew into Abuja from Uganda on 3rd October, and 44 contacts have been traced so far.

Tests confirm it's the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. This is the same strain driving the massive outbreak in eastern DRC since May, and unlike the better-known Zaire strain, there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment for it.

This changes the map. Nigeria is now the fourth African country hit in this outbreak wave, after DRC, Uganda and Kenya.

The numbers are stark. As of 20th October, the WHO puts the DRC outbreak at over 9,700 confirmed cases including 4,690 deaths, making it the deadliest and fastest-growing Bundibugyo outbreak on record. Uganda saw 20 confirmed cases before being declared Ebola-free in August.

For Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with over 230 million people and a busy international hub, an imported case is a major test of its surveillance system.

Nigerians will remember 2014, when the country contained a Zaire-strain Ebola outbreak in just 93 days with only 20 cases. That success was built on rapid contact tracing. The same playbook is being deployed now, but this time without a vaccine safety net.

Contact monitoring: NCDC is monitoring all 44 contacts.

Diplomatic move: Bern says it is considering repatriating the patient to Switzerland for further care.

No panic, but vigilance: WHO says no need for embassy-wide isolation, but airport screening and cross-border surveillance have been stepped up.

Source: Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs statement / NCDC / WHO, as reported by cbinews.tv

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