Friday 23 October 2026
America tightens Ebola screening for every air passenger from November 3, as Switzerland says the Nigeria patient never traveled to Congo and the WHO calls the outbreak more complex
The CDC will require every passenger flying to the United States to attest from November 3 that they have not been in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the prior 21 days, according to a memo seen by Reuters. In Africa, Switzerland told Reuters its national, the Nigerian Ebola patient, did not travel to Congo, contradicting Uganda account, and the WHO said the Bundibugyo outbreak, confirmed to have killed about 4,700 people as of October 23, is growing more complex across four countries.
WASHINGTON and DAKAR, Oct 23 (Reuters). The United States will increase its Ebola defenses on November 3, when a new CDC order requires all passengers on flights to America to file a digital or paper attestation that they have not been in the Democratic Republic of Congo within the previous 21 days. The CDC adopted rules in May barring passengers who had been in Congo within three weeks, extended them to American residents in July, and has also barred foreign nationals who were in Uganda or South Sudan within three weeks. The agency is briefing major American and foreign airlines on Friday on how carriers must comply. No Ebola case linked to this outbreak has been reported in the United States, the CDC said.
The Nigeria case is where the facts now conflict in public. The patient is the Ugandan born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, identified by Switzerland as a Swiss national, and her case, confirmed Tuesday, is Nigeria first in more than a decade. Ugandan authorities said she had traveled to eastern Congo, where the outbreak was declared in mid May. The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs told Reuters on Thursday she was believed to have contracted the disease while traveling with her husband in Uganda, and said on Friday, in a statement to Reuters, that she and her husband did not travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda government spokesman Alan Kasujja said Uganda has no Ebola cases and would say so publicly if it did. Uganda had 20 cases in May and June, mostly imported from Congo, and the WHO declared the country Ebola free in August.
The WHO and the Africa CDC said Thursday they had not received confirmed information that the woman traveled to Congo. Africa CDC emergency chief Wessam Mankoula said both the Nigerian case and the first Kenyan case left Entebbe on October 3, and a possible encounter between them is under investigation. WHO Africa regional director Mohamed Janabi told a briefing Thursday that the agencies are facing a more complex outbreak landscape, with active or recent Bundibugyo cases in Congo, Kenya and Nigeria and earlier cases in Uganda.
The strain kills about half of those it infects and has no approved treatment or vaccine. It spread undetected for months before the outbreak was declared in May and is the fastest spreading Ebola outbreak on record, according to Ugandan authorities account carried by Reuters. The Africa CDC puts confirmed deaths at about 4,700, as of October 23. Where the Nigeria patient was infected is not a detail. If she caught the virus in a country declared Ebola free, the map of the outbreak is wrong somewhere, and every screening rule built on that map, including the new American one, inherits the error.
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