The Bundibugyo Ebola Virus (BEV) has arrived in Nigeria; however, hopefully, will probably be contained.
On June 9, 2026, This Day Lawyer’s Cover was on the BEV. We interviewed Dr Ismail Abdus-Salam, the Director, Epidemiology, Biosecurity and Global Health/State Epidemiologist, Lagos State Ministry of Health. He informed us that the DRC declared its seventeenth outbreak of the Ebola Virus since 1976, on the fifteenth of May, 2026. He said thus: “Ebola is not one virus, but a family. The Zaire strain that reached Nigeria in 2014, is historically the deadliest – case-fatality rates of 40% to 90%. The Bundibugyo strain, first identified in Uganda in 2007, has been less lethal historically – roughly 25%-50% – though this outbreak’s early figures are provisional. But, lower fatality does not make it less serious…..”.
In phrases of how the virus is unfold, Dr Abdus-Salam mentioned: “Ebola is not airborne. It does not spread like flu or Covid-19; you cannot catch it by sharing air or passing someone on the street. Transmission requires direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a person already sick with Ebola, or who has died of it, entering through broken skin or the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose or mouth, or via surfaces soiled by those fluids. A person infected, but not yet symptomatic, is not contagious; people become infectious, only once ill. And, the body of someone who has died of Ebola is highly infectious….So, plainly: casual contact poses no meaningful risk; the danger is close contact with the fluids of the visibly sick and the dead — hence, caregivers and health workers are most at risk”.
On the obtainable therapy, he said that: “There are no licensed vaccines, and no specific approved medicine for the Bundibugyo strain. Ervebo is licensed only against the Zaire strain, and because the two viruses differ in their key surface proteins by roughly 30%, it is not expected to protect reliably against this one”.
For Lagos – “On facilities: the Lagos Mainland Hospital in Yaba – our Infectious Disease Hospital, which managed Nigeria’s Ebola index case in 2014 and was expanded during Covid-19 – is on high alert, with triage, isolation wards, intensive care and specialists. Its on-site Biosafety Level-3 laboratory and Biobank let us confirm samples here, not wait, as in 2014….So, prevention and early care carry the weight of survival: even without a specific drug, early supportive care – fluids, oxygen, treating co-infections, good nursing – saves lives….”.
