Nigeria probes two new suspected Ebola cases as DRC outbreak reaches 10,300 confirmed

Nigerian health authorities are investigating two suspected Ebola cases in the country's northeast, weeks after the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention declared the country's first case in more than a decade on 20 October.

Both individuals have been isolated, contact identification is under way, and laboratory testing is being conducted, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Saturday. The agency cautioned that suspected status does not mean confirmed infection.

Nigeria is the fifth country affected by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, following an imported case confirmed last week — a Swiss woman who had travelled from Uganda and tested positive. She and her husband, a Swiss diplomat, were evacuated to Switzerland on Monday.

The current outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May. It is the largest in the DRC's history: more than 10,300 confirmed cases have been reported across eight of the country's 26 provinces, and the strain has killed more than 5,000 people. No approved treatment or vaccine exists for the Bundibugyo strain, though vaccine trials are under way.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday called for stronger measures to protect front-line workers after two Congolese doctors died from Ebola earlier that week in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Health authorities have identified persistent weaknesses in early detection and contact tracing as the main obstacles to halting transmission, noting that only about 12 percent of confirmed DRC cases were identified among previously known contacts.