Cape Verde will reactivate a platform used during the covid-19 pandemic to monitor entries to the country’s airports after notification of an Ebola case in Nigeria, the National Health Director announced.
© Lusa
23/10/2026
by
Lusa
Cabo Verde will reactivate a platform used during the covid-19 pandemic to monitor entries to the airports of the country after the notification, on Tuesday, of a case of Ebola in Nigeria, announced today the national director of Health.
“ We have a platform that was used during the covid epidemic that we will reactivate, including the application of a “questionnaire” at the entrance to the country, said Ana Paula Santos in statements to Radio Cabo Verde (RCV).
The leader said that, despite the World Health Organization (WHO) classifying the archipelago as a “low risk zone for infection”, professionals will be prepared to act preventively.
“There is a need to strengthen surveillance, equipment, prepare risk communication,” he said, also pointing to a strengthening of laboratory capacity, along with the reference laboratory with which Cabo Verde works, which is the Pasteur Institute of Dakar.
Training actions will be triggered for “all health structures, in the perspective of being able to identify symptoms early”, he said.
In Nigeria, authorities announced on Tuesday the first case of infection: a diplomat who arrived in Abuja on a flight from Uganda.
44 contacts were also identified.
The most populous nation on the continent is the fourth African country to be hit this year by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) five months ago.
In DRC the disease has already reached 9,704 people and killed at least 4,687, according to the latest balance sheet of the National Institute of Public Health.
Viral hemorrhagic fever has a high degree of lethality and has been spreading across several continent countries, including Uganda, neighbouring DRCongo, which had recorded 20 cases and two deaths before declaring transmission eradicated at the end of August.
Kenya has recently declared its ninth case.
The head of the African Union (Africa CDC) health agency, Jean Kaseya, warned on Tuesday of “an extremely serious threat” and called for international mobilization.