Despite the cancellation of Democratic Republic of Congo’s AgriBusiness Forum 2014 in Kinshasa, the IPAD DRC Mining & Infrastructure Indaba will still take place in Kinshasa on Oct. 21-23, and Katanga Mining Week in Lubumbashi on Oct. 26-29 remains unchanged.

Good News for Nigeria

The World Health Organization officially declared Nigeria as now free of Ebola virus transmission on Oct. 20, putting to ease what many believed could potentially have been an explosive outbreak. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also downgraded their Nigeria travel notice to a “Watch Level 1,” telling travelers that they should continue to “practice usual precautions.” CDC will remove their travel notice if no further cases are reported in Nigeria.

Despite the World Health Organization announcement, the Nigeria Oil & Gas Trade and Investment Forum 2014 scheduled at the country’s oil hub, Port Harcourt, for Oct. 30-31 has been postponed with no new date set yet. The cancellation is understandable. According to the World Health Organization, the Ebola virus entered Port Harcourt on August 1 when a person who had close contact with another case flew there seeking care from a private physician. “That doctor developed symptoms on August 10 and died of Ebola on August 23,” according to the World Health Organization.

The good news is that further inland, the 4th Annual Nigeria Alternative Energy Expo (Oct. 22-24) and the West Africa Gas Strategic Conference (Oct. 28-30) are both still scheduled to take place in Abuja, Nigeria.

To be on the safe side, the World Health Organization notes that Nigeria’s Ebola surveillance systems remain at “a level of high alert” and the Nigerian health officials and staff in the World Health Organization’s country office, “are well aware that the country will remain vulnerable to another imported case as long as intense transmission continues in other parts of West Africa.”