Uganda Denies Active Ebola Cases as Kenya and Nigeria Report Infections Linked to Travel Through the Country

Nigeria's health minister said on 23 October 2026 that the Ebola virus found in Nigeria's first patient is closely related to the virus found in Kenya's first patient, which Reuters described as the first genetic link between the two cases.

Both patients travelled through Uganda, which says it has no confirmed active Ebola cases, and investigators have not yet found where the Nigerian woman caught the virus.

Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria's Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, said there is no evidence that the Kenyan patient ever travelled to Nigeria.

He added that the two viruses being related does not by itself explain how the infection reached Nigeria.

Both patients carry the Bundibugyo type of Ebola virus, the same type behind the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

As of 20 October, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 9,704 confirmed cases and 4,687 deaths there.

Two patients, one route through Uganda

Kenya's first patient was a man who travelled from the DRC through Uganda to Nairobi, Kenya's capital.

WHO said he had been ill for about a month and had received care at several hospitals in the DRC.

He arrived in Nairobi on 3 October and died on 5 October, and Kenya reported his laboratory-confirmed case on 6 October.

Kenya's Ministry of Health said on 23 October that the country now has nine confirmed cases, including two deaths.

The latest death was a 65-year-old woman, a close relative of the first patient, who developed symptoms while in quarantine.

WHO said the other cases include four family members and four health and care workers, and that all were already in quarantine when their symptoms began.

The ministry said all nine cases belong to one cluster, with no evidence of spread in the wider community, and that 135 contacts have been traced and quarantined.

Seven patients are being treated at two isolation facilities.

Nigeria's patient is a woman who lives in Abuja, the capital, and is 42 years old, according to Premium Times.

WHO said her symptoms began on 7 October, four days after she arrived in Nigeria, and that she sought care in Abuja on 11 October.

Tests confirmed Ebola on 20 October.

She is in isolation receiving medical care, and 44 people who may have been exposed to her are being monitored.

Reuters reported that Pavel Ursu, the WHO representative in Nigeria, said the information the agency received indicated she was in Uganda from 16 September until she returned to Abuja on 3 October.

Did the two patients cross paths at Entebbe airport?

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said both patients passed through Entebbe International Airport, Uganda's main international airport, on 3 October, according to Premium Times' report of its briefing.

Wessam Mankoula, the agency's head of emergency preparedness and response, said officials are checking whether the two shared equipment or had any other contact.

He called this one of several possibilities and stressed that no connection has been established.

Being at the same airport on the same day is not the same as meeting, and officials have not confirmed whether the two used the same facilities or had any contact at all.

Genetic testing compares the code inside the virus taken from different patients, and viruses from the same chain of infection tend to look very alike.

Nigeria's health ministry said further analysis could give more clues about where the virus came from and how it spread.

What Uganda has said

Uganda's Ministry of Health said in a statement on 20 October that the country has no confirmed active Ebola cases.

It said the woman had travelled to eastern DRC for business before passing through Uganda in early October, that she showed no symptoms while in Uganda, and that she developed them after arriving in Nigeria.

The ministry added that travel through Uganda does not establish that she was infected there.

Uganda dealt with its own outbreak earlier this year.

The ministry recorded 20 confirmed cases, 18 recoveries and two deaths, and Reuters reported that 15 of the cases were infected in the DRC.

The ministry declared the outbreak over on 28 July, and WHO announced its end on 26 August after 42 days without a new confirmed case.

On 21 October, Uganda stepped up screening at Entebbe airport, according to Xinhua.

Diana Atwine, the ministry's Permanent Secretary, visited to reinforce checks, and the ministry said it had received thermal scanners, which measure body temperature, from the International Organization for Migration.

Why the accounts of the Nigerian patient's trip differ

Uganda's ministry said the woman had been in eastern DRC before passing through Uganda.

Switzerland's foreign ministry, which said the woman is the wife of a Swiss diplomat, told Reuters on 22 October that she is believed to have caught the virus during a visit to Uganda about two weeks earlier.

WHO and Africa CDC said they had not received verified information that she travelled to the DRC, and Ursu said the information the agency has does not establish that she travelled outside Uganda.

Patrick Otim, a WHO emergency response manager, said the source of her infection remains unknown while investigators work to establish her movements before she became ill.

Can a person with no symptoms spread Ebola?

WHO said the incubation period for this disease runs from 2 to 21 days, and infected people are not infectious until symptoms begin.

It spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person, or with contaminated surfaces and materials.

Pate stressed on 23 October that it does not spread through the air.

That is why the question of where the Nigerian woman was exposed matters so much, and why health workers follow people who met a patient for several weeks afterwards.

WHO has not recommended any restrictions on travel or trade with the affected countries.

Tests and tracing are still under way

Nigeria says contact tracing, quarantine and testing are continuing, with some results negative and others still pending, and Pate said the country still has only one confirmed case.

Otim said investigators are also looking at the health facilities the woman visited in Abuja after she became ill and before she was hospitalised, including whether other people were exposed there.

WHO said Kenya is coordinating with Uganda and the DRC to establish the Kenyan patient's movements in Uganda.

Mankoula said Nigeria and Uganda are exchanging information to reconstruct the woman's travel history and find the source of her infection.

For now, the genetic link shows that the Kenyan and Nigerian cases are related, but only travel records and further testing can show where the Nigerian woman's infection began, and Uganda's position that it has no confirmed active cases stands alongside that open question.