BY: Abdullateef Sebiotimo
Claim:
The World Health Organization has declared Nigeria Ebola-free after the index patient was evacuated to Switzerland.
Verdict:
Misleading.
Full-Text:
On 26 October 2026, P.M. News published a report and shared it on X with the headline “WHO declares Nigeria Ebola free after patient’s evacuation to Switzerland.” The post linked to an article on its website carrying the same claim gained 18.7K views as at the time of this review.
The report suggested that the medical evacuation of Nigeria’s only confirmed Ebola patient to Switzerland marked the official end of the country’s Ebola situation and that the World Health Organization had formally declared Nigeria free of the virus.
Verification:
A review of the comment section of the post by FactCheckAfrica revealed that WHO Nigeria rejected the claim, describing the headline as “inaccurate and misleading.” The organisation’s comment also clarified that “WHO has not declared Nigeria Ebola-free.”
The organisation confirmed that Nigeria currently has no confirmed case inside the country following the medical evacuation of the index patient to Switzerland, but explained that health officials are still closely monitoring about 52 contacts who may have been exposed. WHO asked for the headline to be retracted and corrected, describing it as an inaccurate interpretation of comments made by the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Professor Mohamed Yakub Janabi in a post on his X handle.
What It Takes for WHO to Declare a Country Ebola-Free
The official WHO criteria for declaring the end of an Ebola outbreak require a strict 42-day period without any new confirmed or probable cases. This period equals twice the maximum incubation period of the Ebola virus, which is 21 days. The countdown does not begin the moment a patient is removed from the country but only after the last potential exposure linked to the final case has been properly resolved.
In the standard process, if a patient recovers, the 42 days begin the day after that person tests negative twice on polymerase chain reaction tests taken at least 48 hours apart. If the patient dies, the countdown begins the day after a safe burial.
In a situation involving medical evacuation, the same principle applies. The countdown starts after the confirmed case is no longer present and after all remaining contacts have been accounted for under continued surveillance. Even after the 42 days are completed without new cases, WHO recommends a further period of heightened surveillance because of the risk that a transmission chain may have been missed.
Nigeria is still at the beginning of this process. The index patient was evacuated on 26 October 2026, the 52 contacts remain under active monitoring, and the required 42-day countdown has not yet been completed. WHO’s own earlier statement on the case, issued when the infection was first confirmed, described it as an imported case and made no declaration that the country was free of the virus.
Conclusion:
WHO has not declared Nigeria Ebola-free. The country currently has no confirmed case after the patient was evacuated, but the mandatory 42-day countdown and continued contact monitoring are still required before any such declaration can be made.
