The Ebola outbreak in Africa has reached another nation:
Mali became the sixth West African country to report a case of Ebola, opening a new front in the international effort to prevent the outbreak of the deadly viral infection from spreading further.
A 2-year-old girl who traveled from Kissidougou, Guinea, with her family to Mali was admitted to a hospital in Kayes yesterday, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s office said in a statement. Test results confirmed she had Ebola. Ebola has infected almost 10,000 people this year, mostly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing about 4,900. Senegal andNigeria, which also had cases, are now free of the virus.
Disease trackers now must trace everyone the girl came in contact with and monitor them for signs of infection. Mali was one of four countries the World Health Organization said this month was at highest risk of Ebola among a group of African nations the agency said needed to be prepared for cases. A WHO-led team has been in Mali this week helping to identify gaps in the country’s defenses.
Given that a two year old is unlikely to have had contact with anyone outside immediate family, hopefully Mali can get this under control and eradicated as easily as Nigeria and Senegal did.
