An outbreak without a vaccine
The outbreak was announced in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May and has caused more than 9,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths, with a case fatality rate of 48.2%. The WHO has said it is on track to exceed West Africa’s 2014-16 epidemic, which killed about 11,000 people.
The strain is the problem. This is Bundibugyo virus, not the Zaire strain that existing vaccines and antibody treatments target. Nigeria’s disease control centre (NCDC) warns that no licensed vaccine or approved targeted therapy exists for it. That leaves the oldest tools: early detection, isolation and contact tracing, which is why airport screening has become the political battleground.
Kenya: screening that missed its first case
Kenya has been on alert since May. Officials have screened 685,027 people at airports, designated Gate 16 at Nairobi’s main airport with an isolation centre for high-risk arrivals, and made travellers from 10 high-risk countries file a digital health form with a QR code. Five health facilities are designated as isolation centres, and temporary sites have been set up on the Ugandan border.
Yet the first patient, who travelled from Congo via Uganda, was screened at Entebbe and again in Nairobi, and neither check flagged him. He died in a Nairobi hospital on 5 October. All nine confirmed cases are linked to him, which suggests contact tracing is holding, but it also shows how a single missed traveller can seed a cluster. The WHO has noted a staffing gap in night-time screening at the Busia border crossing, and the US raised its Kenya travel advisory to Level 3 on 19 October.
Nigeria: testing the 2014 playbook
Nigeria’s patient flew into Abuja via Addis Ababa on 5 October, developed symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a private hospital on 11 October. She was tested only on 19 October, after officials learned she had been in Uganda, and the result was confirmed the next day. That is roughly 12 days from first symptoms to a test, the gap that makes Ebola dangerous. Investigators are also checking whether she crossed paths with Kenya’s first patient at a Ugandan airport.
Health Minister Ali Pate has pointed to the 2014 containment, when Nigeria recorded 20 cases and eight deaths before being declared Ebola-free. But the NCDC’s own director-general put the country’s readiness at 59% in June, flagging porous land borders and the strain of seven to eight concurrent outbreaks, including cholera and Lassa fever. The NCDC has placed Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Rivers on high alert and told all states to designate isolation facilities.
What comes next
Africa CDC has convened health ministers for 28 October to coordinate a continental response. It opposes blanket border closures, favouring targeted, risk-based measures such as entry screening and cross-border information-sharing. The two cases point to where that effort should go. Thermometers at airports cannot catch someone who is still incubating the virus, and Nigeria’s delay shows the same risk inside hospitals. Triage that asks about recent travel may do more than any gate, and for South Africa, which Africa CDC has urged to stay vigilant, the lesson applies equally.
Written by:
*Sesona Mdlokovana
Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group
Africa Specialist
**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL.
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