Nigeria has not been declared Ebola-free despite the evacuation of the country’s only confirmed patient to Switzerland, the World Health Organisation’s Director of Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has said.
Ihekweazu said Nigeria must continue monitoring people who had contact with the patient and strengthen surveillance to prevent further transmission before the outbreak can be officially declared over.
Speaking on Arise News Television on Wednesday, he explained that the evacuation of the index case did not end the public health response, as health authorities still had to monitor identified contacts for 21 days and meet the requirements for the subsequent 42-day period before declaring the country Ebola-free.
His comment comes two days after Nigeria’s confirmed Ebola patient was medically evacuated to Switzerland to receive treatment at Geneva University Hospital, while her husband, a close contact, was placed in isolation at University Hospital Zurich.
THE WHISTLER reported the Federal Government’s projection that Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free by December 7, 2026, if no further confirmed or probable cases emerge.
WHO also clarified that Nigeria’s lack of an active confirmed case following the evacuation did not mean the country had officially been declared Ebola-free.
Ebola belongs to a group of diseases known as viral haemorrhagic fevers, for which every confirmed case is treated as an outbreak requiring a coordinated public health response.
“For certain diseases, a group of diseases we call the viral haemorrhagic fevers, of which Ebola is one of them, we consider every single case equivalent of an outbreak and require a coordinated response,” said Ihekweazu.
“Yesterday we saw the medical evacuation on the request of the country from which the patient came out of Nigeria. This wasn’t as a response to any deficit in the management capacities in Nigeria. This was at the request of the country of origin of the case.”
The WHO official commended Nigerian health authorities for their response, citing the speed of laboratory confirmation, genomic sequencing and clinical management.
He said Nigeria’s response had followed recommended protocols, adding that the priority was to ensure that all identified contacts were monitored daily and any new infection detected early.
On concerns that the outbreak could disrupt political activities or lead to calls for the suspension of electoral processes, Ihekweazu said WHO’s recommendations were guided by technical and public health considerations, not political interests.
“We haven’t advised for any restriction of further gatherings. Our advice is never political. It’s always technical,” he said.
He urged Nigerians to trust the government and its health agencies, which he said were receiving support from the WHO, while warning against politicising the response. His comment aligns with that of Director General of Nigeria Centre for Disease and Control (NCDC) Dr Jide Idris, that Federal Government has no intention of postponing the 2027 general election over Ebola outbreak.
The WHO official also expressed concern over the scale of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the Bundibugyo strain has caused thousands of infections and deaths.
He said the outbreak had spread across eight provinces, with the country recording about 10,000 confirmed cases and nearly 5,000 deaths at the time of the interview.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the DRC had recorded 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 related deaths as of October 26, while cases had also been reported in Kenya and Nigeria.
Ihekweazu was responding to the host’s question on when Africa will be declared Ebola free, considering what WHO country director said in 2014, that the war will only end when West Africa and other affected countries are also declared free of Ebola.
He said African countries needed to demonstrate solidarity with the DRC and support efforts to contain the outbreak rather than engage in blame games.
He noted that although outbreaks could not always be prevented, countries could invest in the capacity required to prevent individual cases from escalating into widespread transmission.
The former Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said this required sustained investment in disease surveillance, trained personnel, emergency operations centres and public health infrastructure.
He described such preparations as essential but often overlooked because they did not offer the political visibility associated with major government projects.
“It’s a diligent, quiet work done by people in the very technical agencies while the rest of the country sleeps,” he said.
He added that the experiences Nigeria gained during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of maintaining strong public health institutions even when there was no immediate emergency.
Addressing concerns about Africa’s limited capacity to develop its own vaccines, Ihekweazu said vaccine development was a complex scientific process requiring international collaboration and sustained investment.
He explained that the current outbreak was caused by the Bundibugyo strain, which had been associated with only two previous outbreaks before the current one.
He said vaccine trials involving three candidates had commenced in the DRC the previous week, describing the initiative as an African-led effort coordinated by the country’s research institutions with support from international partners.
“If we get this vaccine, if the trials are successful by the end of the year, this will be the fastest development of a new vaccine for Ebola that has ever happened,” he said.
Ihekweazu expressed optimism that the trials would strengthen local scientific expertise and contribute to the development of a vaccine against the strain responsible for the current outbreak.
On the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in contact tracing, he said Nigeria had previously developed digital surveillance infrastructure to provide real-time information on infectious diseases.
He recalled that during his tenure at the NCDC, the agency worked to digitalise disease surveillance systems to improve the flow of information and support timely public health responses.
Although he said he did not have current data on the performance of the systems since leaving the agency, he expressed confidence that the infrastructure could support greater use of technology and AI.
The WHO official, however, stressed that AI could only be effective if accurate and standardised data were collected and made available to decision-makers.
“In order to apply artificial intelligence to your data, you have to collect the data in the first place, standardise the data collection, and provide it to those that need to use it to make decisions,” he said.
Ihekweazu further argued that developing and retaining skilled personnel remained as important as investing in technology.