abuja, nigeriaAP —
A Swiss woman who was being treated for Ebola in Nigeria was medically evacuated to Switzerland with her husband, officials said on Monday, as Nigerian authorities continued to monitor 52 people who had come into contact with her.
Nigeria’s Health Minister Muhammad Pate said the woman, the country’s first infected person in the outbreak, left the capital, Abuja, with Nigeria’s approval early on Monday. Her condition has improved significantly and she is now stable, conscious and able to communicate.
“This does not mean she is not still contagious, so strict protocols are in place,” Pate wrote about X. Her husband, a Swiss diplomat in Nigeria, is asymptomatic.
The couple arrived on Monday on a medical evacuation flight, the Swiss Federal Office of Health said. The woman was being treated at Geneva University Hospital, and her husband was in isolation at Zurich University Hospital. The agency said both hospitals had the equipment to treat them and there was no risk to Swiss nationals.
Mohamed Janabi, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said the couple were Swiss nationals and the evacuation was arranged after a Nigerian medical team stabilized the woman after acute treatment.
Janabi said Nigeria will continue to monitor the other 52 contacts.
“Due to the evacuation of the patient and her husband, there are currently no Ebola cases in Nigeria,” he said, stressing the importance of continued vigilance.
Mr Pate said containment measures remained in place and called on Nigerians to remain vigilant.
The woman tested positive after returning to Abuja from Uganda. Nigerian authorities said Friday it was still unclear how she contracted the virus.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press that she had not visited Congo and was believed to have contracted the virus while traveling to Uganda with her husband.
The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the first cases in Nigeria and Kenya both traveled through Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on October 3. Uganda had previously reported cases of Ebola, but later declared the country virus-free.
Kenya has recorded nine cases of the virus, including two deaths, since the first case was confirmed earlier this month.
Kenya on Monday released 20 people from quarantine who were exposed to the virus as contacts of the country’s first infected person, and the remaining 98 people were scheduled to be released from next Tuesday.
“Each of the 20 contacts was assessed to meet release criteria, including being asymptomatic for 21 days since last contact,” Kenya’s Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The spread of Ebola beyond Congo has heightened long-standing concerns among health officials about the rapid transmission of the rare Bundibugyo virus.
According to the latest statistics from the Congolese Ministry of Health, more than 9,900 people have been infected since the outbreak began in May, including more than 4,800 deaths.
The WHO said the outbreak was the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record, with the death toll exceeding the deadliest outbreak in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, when 11,000 people died. Nigeria was also one of the affected countries, recording 20 cases before the outbreak was declared over three months later.
