Mali Confirms New Ebola Case

Mali has confirmed a new Ebola case, which is separate from its only other case that was detected last month.

Medical sources disclosed late Tuesday that a nurse who had treated a patient from Guinea has died. According to the head of the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako, one of the capital city’s top medical centres, “the nurse who had been in contact with a Guinean national who died of the illness, died in turn,” adding that tests had confirmed the Ebola virus. A doctor at Pasteur Clinic is also suspected of having contracted the virus.

On Wednesday, authorities in Mali quarantined dozens of people at the home of the 25-year-old nurse and at the clinic where he had treated an imam from Guinea who died with Ebola-like symptoms. The imam, who comes from the border town of Kouremale, died on 27 October and was never tested for EVD. Strict burial procedures implemented for the burial of Ebola patients were not imposed during his burial. Concerns are now growing over the time it took between the imam’s passing and the implementation of steps needed in order to contain the disease.

A government statement released Wednesday confirmed that the nurse had tested positive for EVD and that he died late Tuesday. The statement further disclosed that all necessary steps to identify people who had come into contact with the nurse had been taken. According to Ousmane Doumbia, secretary general of the health ministry, 70 people have been quarantined and the Pasteur Clinic has been locked down by police.

Mali is the sixth West African nation to record Ebola. Officials will now be required to trace a new group of contacts, a similar procedure that was taken last month after a two-year-old girl died of the disease in western Mali.