Travellers on international routes bound for the United States will shortly be required to declare, under oath, that they have not been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at any point during the three weeks preceding their departure. The policy is set to take effect on 3 November, following Nigeria's first confirmed Ebola case in more than a decade — a development that has placed health agencies across two continents on alert.

Under the attestation order put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anyone boarding a U.S.-bound flight is required to sign a declaration stating they had no presence in the DRC during the three-week window before departure, the agency has confirmed. Under the directive, travellers on flights headed to the United States are required to submit attestations — either in digital form or on paper — and, as of 23 October, no Ebola infections connected to the active outbreak had been detected on American soil, according to available reporting.

Fatalities linked to the Bundibugyo strain — a variant connected to the policy change under discussion — have reached approximately 4,700 across the African continent. WHO data from the Regional Office for Africa puts the total number of countries reporting infections at five, with Nigeria the most recent addition to that roster and four others having recorded cases traced back to a source in Kenya over the past several weeks.

A single travel-linked case of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease has been recorded in Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory, with the WHO Africa office serving as the reporting source. Health authorities identified the patient as a woman who had recently travelled to Uganda; according to the agency, her symptoms first appeared on 7 October, while a separate media outlet placed the onset four days after her arrival in Abuja on 3 October.

A 42-year-old woman born in Uganda and residing in Abuja, identified as the patient at the centre of the Nigerian case, has been placed in isolation and is reported to be responding positively to treatment, according to a broadcast news outlet. The patient's spouse, who had also travelled to Uganda, remained under isolation precautions as of that point, though no symptoms had appeared.

Forty-four people have been placed under active monitoring after being identified as contacts, while an incident management system has been established to bring the response under coordinated oversight.

Attention has turned to the situation in Nigeria partly because of its geographic proximity to where Kenya has been dealing with its own outbreak. Records show that both patients — one from Nigeria, the other from Kenya — passed through Entebbe airport on 3 October, yet investigators have so far been unable to determine whether the two crossed paths or interacted in any way.

Nine cases have been recorded in Kenya — among them one fatality — with every instance traced back to the index patient and no indication that the disease has spread beyond that chain of contact, according to the same report.

Verified by the World Health Organisation, the outbreak spanning the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda was first established in May 2026, with the agency noting a backdrop shaped by humanitarian pressures, security conditions, population movement, and active trade routes. According to figures released by the CDC, the DRC outbreak ranks as the second-largest on record for Ebola, with laboratory-confirmed tallies standing at 5,458 infections and 2,606 fatalities by 21 August.

An attestation requirement added in 2026 builds on entry restrictions put in place after Ebola began moving out of the DRC, a news outlet reported. Issued in May, a CDC directive prohibited travellers who had spent time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo within the preceding 21-day window from boarding any commercial flight bound for the United States; the agency's own order documentation also set out separate entry-related restrictions on certain foreign nationals connected to Uganda and South Sudan.

According to a Reuters review of an internal memo describing the directive, the new order departs from earlier travel restrictions by extending its scope beyond people arriving from affected countries, instead placing an obligation on all inbound air passengers to disclose their recent travel history — a distinction reported by a prominent television news outlet. Carriers operating flights into the country were set to take on responsibility for verifying that travellers had completed the declaration form, with the CDC preparing to walk airline representatives — both domestic and foreign — through the steps required for compliance.

The United States' current position on this disease differs from the approaches it took when earlier outbreaks arose. During a 2014 outbreak, 20 laboratory-confirmed Ebola cases and eight fatalities were recorded before transmission was halted, as one news outlet documented; that same outlet notes that airport health infrastructure has since been expanded to include traveller screenings, temperature monitoring, movement tracking, and digital health declarations at international entry points.