The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, has confirmed the first Ebola case in Nigeria in 2026, saying 44 contacts had been traced to the carrier in a statement that corroborates an earlier report by Peoples Gazette.
“A person who recently arrived Nigeria on an international flight from Uganda was admitted to a private hospital in the FCT, where she received treatment for several days before the diagnosis was confirmed,” Mr Pate said in a statement on Tuesday.
Mr Pate did not elucidate on contact-tracing measures or provide details on the day the foreigner entered Nigeria, the airline or other details.
He also did not say the patient’s health status, whether critically ill or mildly symptomatic.
But he said the health ministry will liaise with the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control to manage the situation.
Healthcare workers in the Nigerian capital are now scrambling to contain the situation, which has already devastated the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and other African countries in recent months.
The Gazette learnt the female patient was admitted to Nizamiye Hospital, a Turkish-run facility just outside the city centre in Life Camp.
Sources told the masthead that the Federal Ministry of Health, under President Bola Tinubu, has begun distributing financial resources to track and trace the virus to prevent its spread across Africa’s most populous country.
The Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which has ranged other African nations, has no known cure.
Stella Adadevoh, the doctor who treated Nigeria’s first Ebola patient, Patrick Sawyer, who had arrived from Liberia, died in 2014 after contracting the virus from him.
Ebola is mostly spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, sweat, vomit, faecal matter or contaminated objects.
Nigerians are advised to call NCDC toll-free line 6232 to report suspected cases.