Uganda Imposes Quarantine on Those Who Visited Congo in Bid to Fight Ebola

Ugandan citizens returning to the country who passed through Congo on their travels will have to quarantine for 21 days, Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi said Sunday, as authorities stepped up precautions against Ebola.Uganda declared itself Ebola-free in July following its latest outbreak, but concern has grown after two people who had recently traveled through the landlocked African country later tested positive for the potentially deadly virus in Kenya and Nigeria.The Nigerian case involves the wife of a Swiss diplomat. Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control said the 42-year-old woman traveled from Uganda through the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, before arriving in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Oct. 3.The agency said she is being kept in isolation and has shown significant improvement.Authorities have identified 53 individuals who had contact with the woman and are working to trace them, according to the Nigerian agency.Ugandan officials said they were co-operating with Nigerian authorities and international partners to investigate the case, reviewing genomic sequencing results, travel records, interactions, and the woman’s movements.Disputed ConclusionWhile Swiss authorities have said the woman is believed to have contracted Ebola in Uganda, Baryomunsi has disputed that conclusion, accusing Switzerland of “speaking prematurely.”He said relatives of the woman from Uganda’s West Nile region visited her in Kansanga, a suburb of Kampala, and that they traveled to Congo.“What evidence do they have that she never traveled there?” he said. “We should speak science, not politics.”A nurse prepares a vaccine during an Ebola vaccine trial in Kampala, Uganda, on Feb. 3, 2025. Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty ImagesFirst Kenyan CaseKenya’s first Ebola patient had traveled from Congo to Uganda before boarding a flight from Uganda’s Entebbe airport to Nairobi on Oct. 3. The patient died two days later in Kenya’s first-ever recorded Ebola fatality.The Nigerian and Kenyan cases both passed through Entebbe International Airport on the same day, but Uganda’s health ministry permanent secretary, Diana Atwine, told a press conference that the two individuals had no direct contact.Atwine said officials had reviewed the airport’s CCTV footage as part of their investigation and found no physical interaction between the two passengers.Baryomunsi said the 60 people identified as contacts of Kenya’s index case had completed the 21-day monitoring period and had been discharged.Uganda has also strengthened airport screening procedures at Entebbe and at all land border crossings, the minister said.“All travelers intending to enter Uganda by air, land or water must complete the passenger locator form,” he said.A banner is displayed at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, on Oct. 22, 2026. Sodiq Adelakun/ReutersGenomic AnalysisGenomic analysis of Nigeria’s only confirmed Ebola case found that the virus was closely related to the strain identified in Kenya’s first patient.Nigerian authorities said, however, that there was no evidence the Kenyan patient had traveled to the country or had a direct connection to the Nigerian case.The epicenter of the Ebola outbreak is in Congo, with 9,816 confirmed cases and 4,757 confirmed deaths, according to the latest update from the Congolese government, making it the second largest documented epidemic of the virus in history.The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, health officials say.Historically, Bundibugyo virus outbreaks kill 30 to 40 percent of confirmed patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Uganda, which is in east-central Africa, shares a border with Congo and has previously experienced Ebola outbreaks.Vaccine Trial UnderwayNo vaccine is currently approved for this strain, but trials are underway in Uganda and Congo to determine whether Ervebo, a vaccine approved for a different Ebola strain, also protects against the Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak.Researchers vaccinated the first participant in a major trial in Bunia, eastern Congo, on Oct. 23.Oxford University and Moderna developed experimental vaccines specifically for Bundibugyo, which are expected to be added to the trial in the Congo later.World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday that a nurse had been killed and another health worker seriously injured in an attack while responding to an Ebola alert in the northern Congolese town of Bafwasende.The attack took place on Saturday, he said in a post on X.“Everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety,” Tedros said.Reuters contributed to this report.