BAMAKO (Reuters) – Mali has recorded a new case of Ebola in the capital Bamako after the friend of a nurse who died of the hemorrhagic fever earlier this month tested positive for the disease, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The nurse contracted the disease after treating an imam from neighboring Guinea, who died after being incorrectly diagnosed with kidney problems. This allowed Ebola to spread to five other people in the West African nation’s second outbreak.
“Of two suspected cases tested, one was negative and the other positive. The latter was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment,” a statement from the ministry said, adding that another 310 contact cases were being monitored.
A total of 5,459 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record, according the World Health Organization (WHO). Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia account for all but 15 of them.
Of the six previously known cases of the disease in Mali, all have died, the WHO said on Friday.
(Reporting by Colin Baker and Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Joe Bavier; editing by Jane Baird)