Former head Nigerian public health confident Ebola can be contained

The former director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Abdulsalami Nasidi, said he is confident that the country can contain a possible spread of Ebola.

Its first case of the haemorrhagic virus in more than a decade was reported on Tuesday becoming ‌the fourth African country and the most populous yet to be affected.

The detection has brought back memories of the epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people across west Africa between late 2013 and 2016.

"Nigeria was able to rapidly control the 2014 Ebola outbreak because they took the right actions at the right time, had good command structures on the ground,” he said.

Nasidi said, however, that success in controlling the spread of the disease now, will depend on funding and commitment from the presidency.

The patient, a woman who travelled from Uganda to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, has the same Bundibugyo strain behind the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Health Organisation declared Uganda officially Ebola-free in August after recording 20 cases - almost all of them in people who had travelled from the DRC.

"The Ugandan government is denying that she must have acquired the virus in Uganda because Uganda has been declared Ebola-free,” said Nasidi.

He said Nigeria needs to work hard to get the person’s complete travel history in order to enhance and develop a comprehensive risk assessment.

“That is what will empower us to be able to track not just contacts, but we have to track the virus. If we don't track the virus, we allow the virus to escape, we are in trouble," he said.

Authorities have so far identified 44 contacts that are being monitored, while intensifying efforts to find other people who may have been exposed.

The DRC's Ebola epidemic has become the deadliest in the country's history.

It has killed 4,381 people out of more than 9,000 confirmed cases since mid-May, according to the health authorities.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's Director General Jean Kaseya on Tuesday warned of "an extremely serious threat", with fatality rates fast edging towards 50 per cent in the DRC.

It has called a high-level meeting of health ministers for next Wednesday to assess the outbreak, coordinate cross-border efforts, support affected countries and strengthen continental preparedness.