WHO sends Ebola experts to Mali as Europe boosts aid

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The World Health Organisation says it is sending experts to help Mali fight Ebola, a day after the country confirmed its first case of the deadly virus.

The announcement came as European leaders agreed to almost double its financial contribution to tackle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion).

Mali’s government said a two-year-old girl, who had recently been in Guinea, had tested positive for Ebola.

The girl was diagnosed after she arrived at a hospital in the western town of Kayes, the health ministry said in a statement. Her identity has not been released.

Health ministry spokesman Markatche Daou said the girl had visited Kissidougou, a town in the southern part of Guinea where the Ebola outbreak was first identified in December 2013.

The WHO said 43 people who had been in contact with the child were being monitored, including 10 health workers.

A WHO team of three experts has been in Mali evaluating its defences, and at least four more would go there over the next few days, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said.

“She saw a health care worker on October 20 when she had a fever of 39 degrees Celsius, blood in her stools, was coughing and had a nose bleed,” she said.

“They tested for malaria or typhoid and she was admitted to hospital on October 21.”

The West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have borne the brunt of the deadly Ebola virus.

At least 4,900 people have died of the disease and 10,000 have been infected, according to the WHO.

Mali’s health ministry said all necessary steps had been taken to avoid the spread of Ebola, and called on residents to remain calm.

Europe steps up response to Ebola outbreak

After a summit in Brussels, European Union president Herman Van Rompuy said leaders had agreed to boost aid to 1 billion euros.

The 28 member states and the European Commission had already pledged nearly 600 million euros to pay for medical staff and facilities in the worst affected countries.

British prime minister David Cameron has led calls to raise 1 billion euros, urging his EU peers to match London’s efforts to tame a disease for which there is no vaccine nor cure, only therapeutic treatments.

Experts have warned that infections could soar to 10,000 per week by early December – a terrifying prospect for a disease with a death rate running at 70 per cent.

There have been some isolated cases in the United States and Europe but authorities are trying to put as many resources as possible into West Africa in the hope of containing it at its main source.

On Thursday, officials said a doctor in New York had tested positive for the Ebola virus after returning from Guinea.

The Ebola crisis is a major concern at the EU summit, with German chancellor Angela Merkel calling for the bloc to agree how many personnel it should send to west Africa to fight Ebola on the ground.

Leaders agreed Thursday to name Christos Stylianides, incoming Cyprus Commissioner for humanitarian aid, as coordinator for the Ebola response.

Reuters/AFP