Ebola Breaks Out In Mali While Death Toll In West Africa Crosses 5,000 Mark
Mali, which just beat its first outbreak of Ebola, has confirmed a second one that is larger and more threatening as more than 90 people including U.N. peacekeepers were quarantined across the West African nation's capital on Wednesday.
By Sadho Ram — 13 Nov 2014, 03:22 PM — Updated almost 10 years ago
Just when it appeared — after succesfully thwarting its first Ebola outbreak — Mali would be given the all clear, the West African country is now racing to control a fresh Ebola outbreak after confirming its second death from the deadly disease
The victim who apparently began the new outbreak was an imam who fell ill in Guinea and traveled to Mali for better treatment at a major private clinic in Bamako, the capital.
nytimes.com
The imam was never tested for Ebola. In a series of rites that may have exposed many mourners to the deadly virus, his highly contagious body was washed in a Bamako mosque and returned to Guinea for burial without precautions against Ebola.
reuters.com
A 25-year-old nurse, who treated the imam who succumbed with Ebola-like symptoms that were not recognised, died of Ebola on Tuesday. The clinic in the Malian capital, Bamako is now in quarantine and under police guard.
A police officer on guard outside the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako, Mali, where a patient with the country's second confirmed case of Ebola died
Image via Joe Penney/ReutersThe outbreak was detected only after a nurse at the clinic fell ill and died, and the chief W.H.O. representative in Mali heard from his counterparts in Guinea that members of the imam’s family were dying. “It was a real failure by the clinic,” the W.H.O. representative, Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, said in a telephone interview.
nytimes.com
Thirty one people are isolated at the clinic, 16 of them are patients, the rest are staff, according to hospital director Dramane Maiga. The fatality was not related to Mali’s first case, the death of a two-year-old girl travelling home from Guinea to the north-western town of Kayes last month.
theguardian.com
In Bamako 45 people, most of them family members of the Muslim cleric, are isolated in their homes. They are being monitored regularly, according to Sow. He said the people in the clinic in Bamako will remain there for 21 days, unless another solution is found.
theguardian.com
According to reports, at least 200 people are believed to have been in contact with the imam since he fell ill. On Wednesday health workers and volunteers began tracing these people in Mali and Guinea.
Cars lined up to enter Guinea from Mali at the border in Kourémalé in early October. Closing the border has been considered impractical and a violation of Malian hospitality.
Image via nyt.comThe World Health Organization said there were now four confirmed and probable Ebola deaths in Mali, adding that one was a friend who had visited the imam in hospital. The group did not give immediate details of the fourth case. A doctor at the Pasteur Clinic where the nurse worked - one of Bamako's top medical centers and the default clinic for expatriates - is also suspected to have contracted Ebola and is being monitored.
reuters.com
About 20 U.N. peacekeepers who were at the clinic for injuries sustained while serving in the turbulent north of Mali were quarantined as a precaution, the U.N. mission said, without specifying their nationalities.
reuters.com
The new cases will add to the mounting total of Ebola victims
In its last update on Nov. 5, the World Health Organization said there had been more than 13,000 confirmed or suspected cases in West Africa since the epidemic began. Some 5,000 have died.
nytimes.com
Meanwhile, hundreds of health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone
The staff are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly $100 (£63) "hazard payment". A few are still assisting at the clinic. The clinic, in Bandajuma near Bo, is the only Ebola treatment centre in southern Sierra Leone.
About 60 patients had been left unattended because of the strike at the clinic in Bandajuma. Those on strike include nurses, porters and cleaners. There are international staff at the clinic but they are unable to keep the clinic open on their own.
The staff, who are protesting outside the clinic, say the government agreed to the "hazard payments" when the facility was established but has failed to make any payments since September. The money was due to be paid in addition to salaries the staff receive from MSF.