#ebola [This, this would be bad. The ONLY limiting factor for Ebola is its historical lack of ease of transmission.] 🚨 ➡️🇳🇬🇰🇪🇨🇩 First Ebola patients in Nigeria and Kenya might have crossed paths at Uganda airport - The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that ➡️ the first Ebola patients confirmed in Kenya and Nigeria might have crossed paths at an airport in Uganda - The first Ebola patients confirmed in Kenya and Nigeria might have crossed paths at an airport in Uganda earlier this month, African health officials said Thursday as they race to trace and slow an outbreak that has spread to several African countries. - 🚨 Both patients are known to have traveled through Uganda's Entebbe International Airport on Oct. 3, said Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness and response at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. - ➡️ “One of the issues we are currently investigating has been some sort of interaction between the two cases at the airport,” Mankoula said. - The current Ebola outbreak emerged in Congo in May and the disease has since been detected in three other African countries, becoming the continent’s most geographically widespread Ebola outbreak in history. - Nigeria announced its first case on Tuesday, saying the patient had travelled from Uganda. ➡️ Ugandan authorities denied the claim that the patient was exposed in their country and ➡️ said the patient had travelled to Congo — ➡️ something now disputed by health officials. - ➡️ The Nigerian case, who ➡️ is an Uganda-born wife of a diplomat in Abuja, had vacationed in Uganda for two weeks in September and had arrived in Nigeria in early October, officials said. Nigeria said it is currently ➡️ tracing 44 contacts. Mankoula said ➡️ additional contacts have been identified, but declined to give the new figure. - Uganda recorded 20 cases before declaring itself free of the disease in June. However, the country is now believed to be linked to the new imported cases in Nigeria and Kenya. Kenya has recorded nine cases so far, linked to a traveler who had returned from Congo to Kenya through Uganda. - ➡️So far 🚨 there is no indication that the Nigerian patient traveled to Congo, Mankoula said. Officials from the World Health Organization said the same thing at a separate briefing on Thursday. - ➡️“The information supplied to WHO did not include travel to another country during that period, and other accounts about prior travels were not communicated to us,” said Dr. Pavel Ursu, the WHO country representative in Nigeria. - Congo has been struggling to contain the virus, which has infected more than 9,500 people, killing nearly half of them. The virus has spread to eight provinces and 66 health zones across the country’s eastern region. - ➡️ According to data from the Africa CDC, 🚨only 20% of confirmed cases are among known contacts and about 60% of deaths are within the community, outside of treatment centers. ➡️ Analysts say the disease in some of the hotspots in Congo is out of control. abcnews.com/Health/wireStory…

#ebola 🇳🇬🇺🇬🇨🇩 ⬇️⬇️⬇️

#ebola 🇰🇪 Kenya:

Such an apt metaphor.

#flu [“This version of the virus has already wreaked havoc in Japan…..These H1N1 viruses have also picked up a gene mutation that makes them better at evading our immunity…..The mutation, at a location called G15….”] ➡️ A mutated virus is driving the US into an early flu season, especially on the West Coast - Flu season is picking up months ahead of schedule with a mutated virus spreading in some parts of the United States, surprising some people who might not even be thinking about their annual flu shots yet. - ➡️ This year, the season started 2 1/2 months earlier than what’s typical and ➡️ hit states on the West Coast first, which is unusual, said Dr. Alex Greninger, head of the Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics at the University of Washington’s Department of Laboratory Medicine. -Usually, the US flu season starts in the South – often in Florida, where it arrives from the Southern Hemisphere. Then it tends to spread north as fall and winter progress. - “In Seattle, we’re pretty far north. We see a pretty strong peak in January,” Greninger said, noting that the bulk of their cases typically come in late December through February. - That’s not how it’s playing out this year. - ‘January levels of flu’ - Roughly 1 in 10 people tested for the flu in Washington state last week was positive, according to data from the state Department of Public Health. - ➡️“We’re basically seeing January levels of flu in the last week,” Greninger said. - Walgreens says that nationally, this flu season is tracking about four weeks ahead of recent seasons, and it’s dispensing more antiviral prescriptions as well as cough and cold medications than during the same period last year. - Nationally, about 2.1% of doctor visits last week were for influenza-like illness, a rough measure of the misery that flu symptoms like fever and cough are causing across the country. That’s still below the national baseline, however, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning the virus hasn’t really taken off everywhere yet. - ➡️ “All of the Pacific states, I would say, started their season very early, but we are now seeing as the season progresses a spread eastward, and so all regions of the country are seeing increases at this point,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist who directs the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. - In the region that includes Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada, the proportion of flu tests that come back positive reached at least 10% last week, indicating significant levels of flu. The South is catching up to those numbers quickly, said Rivers, who closely tracks the flu through her Force of Infection newsletter. - A dominant strain - The wave of flu hitting the Pacific states came from Asia, Greninger said, and is dominated by the H1N1 virus, which sparked a pandemic when it first emerged in 2009. - It represents about 98% of the samples his lab is getting now, he said. - ➡️ These H1N1 viruses have also picked up a gene mutation that makes them better at evading our immunity. - ➡️ This version of the virus has already wreaked havoc in Japan, where it forced school and day-care closures after cases surged in kids. It also prompted officials to move up vaccination clinics to help protect people. - ➡️ The mutation, at a location called ➡️ G155E, cropped up after strains were already selected for this year’s flu shots, Greninger said. So ➡️ even though the vaccines target a version of H1N1 and should still offer some protection, the virus can still break through. - Get vaccinated now, experts say - Greninger notes that the Covid-19 pandemic helped develop new tools that allow us to track the spread of viral variants almost in real time. - “We’re getting closer and closer to the weather report, right?” he said. “We can get the sequence quickly, so we can say exactly what the mutations are. What this really puts the focus on is, ➡️ we’ve got to be able to make these vaccines faster.” - ➡️ The strains used in this year’s flu shots were chosen in the spring, before the new viral variant had become a threat. They’re selected so early because the majority of US flu shots are still grown in chicken eggs, a practice that persists, Greninger added, because it is so cheap. - ➡️ There’s a newly approved flu shot that uses mRNA technology, and he said that has the potential to make better shots available more quickly. Whether it will someday replace egg-based vaccines is a different issue – an economic one. - Doctors often advise getting a flu shot before Halloween, in order to provide the best protection through spring. But Greninger’s best advice now is to get vaccinated as soon as possible. “A lot of people, like even myself, would wait until late October, which we’re sort of in already. But really, the time to get vaccinated was actually two to three weeks ago.” - Other experts agree. - “It is very early, and so I worry about vaccine timing,” Rivers said. “People aren’t thinking about getting their flu vaccine so early in the season.” - Whether that will make the overall season more severe remains to be seen. - Greninger said ➡️ there could also be a second wave of flu cases after H1N1 peaks. - “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a second flu season, like a normal flu season. You’ll have H1N1 cases that will peak in 2026, and then who knows what comes in January or February or March,” he said. “So maybe interesting to watch.” By Brenda Goodman cnn.com/2026/10/22/health/fl…

#Covid ⚠️⚠️

#ebola [The Ebola patient in Nigeria is the wife of a diplomat. She had travelled to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, for a 2 1/2 week holiday — this is a completely new travel story. She transited Ethiopia on her way home, and then was admitted to two hospitals.] ➡️🇳🇬🇺🇬 Nigeria’s first Ebola patient is diplomat’s wife who holidayed in Uganda — Africa CDC - Providing details of the patient’s medical history, Mr Kaseya said the woman first developed symptoms on 6 October and initially sought treatment at a private hospital, believing she had malaria. - ➡️ Nigeria’s first confirmed Ebola patient is ➡️ the wife of a diplomat who ➡️ travelled to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, for a holiday, the Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Jean Kaseya, has said. - Kaseya said ➡️ the woman, ➡️ originally from Uganda but resident in Abuja, developed symptoms three days after returning to Nigeria on 3 October. - Providing details of the patient’s medical history, Mr Kaseya said the woman ➡️ first developed symptoms on 6 October and initially sought treatment at a private hospital, ➡️ believing she had malaria. - She subsequently ➡️⚠️visited another private hospital, where she was admitted on 11 October after her condition failed to improve. “She went to the first hospital, a private hospital, thinking that she had malaria, and then she went to the second private hospital. She was admitted on the 11th,” Mr Kaseya told the BBC’s Newshour programme. - Details of patient’s travel, condition - According to a report by the BBC, Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, confirmed that ➡️ the 42-year-old woman ➡️ ⚠️ spent two and a half weeks in Kampala before ➡️ returning to Abuja through ➡️ Ethiopia, where she ➡️ had a two-hour stopover in Addis Ababa. - Mr Pate said the patient, who tested positive for Ebola on Tuesday, was ➡️ stable and responding to treatment. - “She’s stable, she’s improving,” he said. - He said health authorities had identified ➡️ 44 people who came into contact with the patient and were taking measures to prevent further transmission. - ➡️ “Not all of them have been in close proximity. We cast the net wide so that we contain it as broadly as possible,” he told the BBC. - The minister explained that ➡️ none of the identified contacts, including the ➡️ person who travelled with the patient, had developed symptoms. - He added that ➡️ the woman had remained in Abuja since returning to Nigeria. - Mr Pate said public health authorities were alerted on Monday, 19 October, after the patient’s condition failed to improve. - Her Ebola diagnosis was confirmed the following day after three laboratory tests. - Ebola has an incubation period of two to 21 days, meaning an infected person may not develop symptoms until several days or weeks after exposure. - Ebola spreads through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person, or with contaminated materials. Symptoms can include fever, headache, severe weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. - Conflicting accounts of patient’s travel history - ➡️The latest information from Nigerian authorities and the Africa CDC ➡️⚠️ differs from an earlier account provided by Uganda’s Ministry of Health. - ➡️⚠️ Ugandan authorities had described the patient as a Nigerian national who travelled to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for business and only passed through Uganda while returning home. - The Ugandan government maintained that the country had no active confirmed Ebola cases and that the woman’s transit through Uganda did not establish that she contracted the virus there. However, Mr Pate said Nigerian authorities were working with Uganda, Ethiopia and the Africa CDC to establish the patient’s complete travel history and determine where she might have contracted the infection. - “We respect our sister nation of Uganda,” he said. “We have very strong solidarity, we are all in it together.” - Mr Kaseya also called for greater information-sharing among African countries to support investigations into the patient’s movements and possible exposure. - He urged Western countries to avoid imposing travel restrictions, stressing that international collaboration and solidarity were essential to containing the outbreak. - Regional outbreak - Nigeria’s confirmed case comes amid an ongoing Ebola outbreak linked to the Bundibugyo virus in the DRC, with infections also reported in other countries. - The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported more than 9,500 cases and 4,602 deaths in the DRC as of 19 October. - Kenya, which confirmed its first imported case in early October, reported a ninth case on Tuesday. Its health ministry said all nine cases belonged to one known cluster, with the eight surviving patients responding well to supportive care. - ➡️ The first Kenyan patient had travelled from the DRC through Uganda before arriving in Nairobi. The development has ➡️ heightened regional concerns about the movement of the virus across borders. - Uganda also recorded Ebola infections earlier in 2026 but subsequently declared its outbreak over after completing the required period without a new confirmed case. - Nigeria’s current case has renewed attention on the risks posed by international travel during an outbreak, as public health authorities work to establish the source of infection and prevent further transmission. - Health authorities have advised the public to maintain good hand hygiene, avoid contact with the bodily fluids of suspected cases and promptly report possible exposure to public health officials. - Nigeria draws on 2014 experience - Nigeria previously experienced an Ebola outbreak in 2014 after an infected traveller arrived in Lagos from Liberia. - The outbreak resulted in 20 cases, including 19 laboratory-confirmed cases and one probable case, with eight deaths. - The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Nigeria free of Ebola transmission on 20 October 2014 after the country completed 42 days without a new case. Meanwhile, Mr Pate expressed confidence in the country’s ability to contain the latest case, citing improvements in disease surveillance, laboratory capacity and the availability of trained epidemiologists. - He said Nigeria’s previous experience with Ebola was one reason for confidence in the current response. - “We have done it in 2014, and we have good public health institutions,” Mr Pate said. By Nike Adebowale-Tambe premiumtimesng.com/health/he…

#ebola [The Ebola patient in Nigeria is a foreign national, married to a Swiss man (Is she also Swiss?🇨🇭). She was initially treated for malaria.] ➡️🇺🇬🇳🇬 Nigeria announces its first Ebola case in 12 years - Nigeria has its first Ebola case in 12 years, according to the country’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. - The patient, ➡️ a female foreign national, developed symptoms on October 7, four days after arriving in Nigeria via Uganda. ➡️ She was initially treated for malaria at a private healthcare facility in Abuja on October 11. ➡️ After she failed to recover, physicians tested for Ebola, with the Bundibugyo strain confirmed yesterday. - Now 44 contacts, including healthcare workers and ➡️ the woman’s Swiss husband, are under surveillance. The woman is receiving supportive care in isolation. - Uganda has maintained there is no ongoing Ebola transmission in the country after 20 cases were reported earlier this year. The World Health Organization (WHO) said investigations are ongoing to establish the patient’s full travel history. - Ebola is now affecting three regions of Africa. - “Ebola is now affecting three regions of Africa. The situation demands urgent action and political leadership at the highest level,” Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director-General Jean Kaseya, MD, MPH, said on X. “I have invited African Ministers of Health to an extraordinary virtual meeting on 28 October to strengthen our collective response.” - Kenya says 9th patient is known case contact - In other news, Kenya has now confirmed a ninth Ebola case, after another case contact tested positive for the virus. The country said there is still no evidence that transmission is occurring in the community, and all positive cases have had ties to the country’s index case-patient, who was diagnosed earlier this month. The Associated Press said the cases in Kenya include the index patient, four family members, and four health workers. - All case contacts must complete a 21-day quarantine, Kenyan officials said, with the first wave of contacts to end their quarantine on October 25. - The WHO said the Kenyan cases and the new case in Nigeria means all countries in Africa should “sustain a high level of readiness as the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to evolve.” Countries, should not, however, restrict travel or trade with affected countries. - “They should also heighten monitoring at points of entry, with response plans in place. Sustained readiness is essential to detect cases early, prevent onward transmission and protect health workers and communities,” the WHO said. - The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the world’s second-largest, with 9,668 confirmed Ebola cases and 4,649 deaths. By Stephanie Soucheray cidrap.umn.edu/ebola/nigeria…

This time from Egypt headed to Glasgow. 8 passengers vomiting. The new normal

#ebola ➡️ 🇳🇬🇺🇬 Uganda seeks details of Nigeria’s confirmed Ebola case - ➡️ Uganda has asked Nigeria to provide detailed travel and clinical records of a woman confirmed to have the Ebola virus disease in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, following Nigeria’s confirmation of the infection. - Nigeria confirmed the Ebola case on Tuesday, after laboratory testing of the case, a woman who recently arrived in Nigeria after travelling from Uganda, and currently is receiving medical care in isolation. - In a statement, Prof. Charles Olaro, the Director General of Health Services, Uganda Ministry of Health, said ➡️ the information was required to guide further investigations and determine whether additional contact tracing was necessary, even as he stressed that the woman’s transit through Uganda did not establish that she contracted the virus there. - The statement, issued on Tuesday in Kampala, said ➡️the Ministry of Health was awaiting further information from the Nigerian government ➡️ to help establish the circumstances surrounding the infection, stating that it would strengthen screening and other public health measures at points of entry in collaboration with relevant agencies. - ➡️ Preliminary information cited by the Ugandan authorities revealed that the woman, who ➡️ travelled to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for business, ➡️ transited through Uganda in early October ➡️ without showing symptoms, but reportedly ➡️developed symptoms after arriving in Nigeria, as ➡️the location where she contracted the virus remains under investigation. - ➡️ “The Government of Nigeria is yet to provide detailed information on the woman’s travel itinerary and clinical history to guide further investigations and any necessary contact tracing. - “The Ministry wishes to clarify that, ➡️ as of the date of this statement, Uganda has no confirmed active Ebola cases.” - It said limited provisions had been maintained to facilitate humanitarian and diplomatic movements. The Ministry, working with relevant agencies, will further strengthen screening and public health measures at points of entry. By Sola Ogundipe vanguardngr.com/2026/10/ugan…