Ebola: How much have Nigerian states allocated to emergency preparedness?

 Nigeria’s first confirmed case of Ebola in more than a decade has raised questions about how prepared state governments are to detect and contain the virus before it spreads through their communities.

The World Health Organisation said on 20 October that Nigeria had recorded an imported case of Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus. The patient is the wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja. She arrived in Nigeria on 3 October after travelling from Uganda and developed symptoms a few days later. The patient and her spouse were later evacuated to Switzerland on Monday while health authorities identified 53 contacts and began monitoring them.

The confirmation followed weeks of warnings from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) about the risk of the virus entering Nigeria from an outbreak that began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Health authorities are identifying people who may have been exposed, tracing their movements, testing suspected cases, protecting healthcare workers and preventing further transmission. Much of this work depends on coordination across states, local government areas and health facilities, where people live and seek treatment.