The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has announced the provision of a N100,000 weekly allowance for each of the 53 isolated contacts traced to the female Ebola patient in Abuja.

Jide Idris, NCDC director-general, told reporters on Sunday, stating that the stipend became necessary after isolated people complained about the financial impact of their isolation on their families.

“We are paying for their accommodation; we are paying for their feeding. Some of them are asking for a stipend to maintain their families,” the NCDC boss said.

He added, “We are providing N100,000 per person per week just to maintain their comfort and feeding, because they were complaining.”

Mr Idris explained that the allowance is an unplanned emergency measure that could be reviewed as the situation evolves.

“This was not planned for, but it is an emergency. We will continue to review it as we go along,” Mr Idris said.

That the Ebola patient was discovered in FCT, according to Mr Idris, did not mean the responsibility for managing the outbreak rested solely with the FCT government.

He enjoined other states to prepare to support persons impacted by public health emergencies, should any case be detected in their jurisdiction.

“This is not the responsibility of the FCT alone. What we have to do for the FCT, we have to do for any other state, just in case,” he said.

He confirmed the isolation of seven additional persons linked to the Ebola virus patient in Abuja, raising the number of isolated persons to 53.

Peoples Gazette last week reported that NCDC added the patient’s two domestic staff to the 44 isolated persons.

“As of now, we have 53 primary contacts. These comprise 44 people from the health facility where the patient was treated and nine additional contacts,” the NCDC boss said at a press briefing on Sunday.

He explained that the newly traced contacts were largely the healthcare workers who first attended to the patient in Julius Berger Clinic before she went to Nizamiye Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Ebola.  

Mr Idris said none of the isolated people has, so far, tested positive to the virus.

A 42-year-old female patient, who was born in Uganda and married to a Swiss diplomat, tested positive to the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus disease on October 20.

She had departed Uganda for Nigeria on October 3. 

Nigeria’s health minister Ali Pate said genomic analysis indicates that the virus identified in Nigeria is highly similar to the case reported in Kenya.

He implied that there was a high possibility that the patient in Nigeria crossed paths with a Kenyan man at the airport in Uganda. The Kenyan man died days after arriving in Nairobi. 

Uganda’s Ministry of Health denied exporting the virus to Nigeria, reaffirming its Ebola-free status as declared by the World Health Organisation in August.