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 The girl had traveled with her grandmother hundreds of kilometers by
bus from Guinea via Mali's capital to the western town of Kayes,
where she was diagnosed on Thursday. Health workers were scrambling
to trace hundreds of potential contacts in a bid to prevent Ebola
taking hold in Mali.
The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed 4,900 people, mainly
in nearby Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. A global response to the
epidemic is being rolled out but experts warn that tens of thousands
more people are at risk.
In a statement on Friday night, Mali's government confirmed the
death of the girl, who has not been identified.
"In this moment of sadness, the government would like to express its
condolences to her family and reminds the population that maintain
very strict hygiene rules remains the best way to contain this
disease," it said.
Mali is the sixth West African nation to record a case of Ebola.
Senegal and Nigeria have successfully contained outbreaks and has
been declared free of the disease. Spain and the United States have
had a few cases.
Diplomatic sources have expressed concern about the preparedness of
Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, to contain an outbreak.
Home to a large U.N. peacekeeping mission, the mostly Muslim country
is still battling northern Islamist militants after a brief
French-led war last year.
WHO said that an investigation into the girl's case revealed that
she had already started showing symptoms - and was therefore
contagious - before being taken to Kayes.
"WHO is treating the situation in Mali as an emergency," the U.N.
health agency said in a statement.
"The child’s symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially
concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures –
including high-risk exposures - involving many people," it added.
The girl was seen by health workers on Oct. 20 in Kayes but was
referred to another hospital the next day where she tested positive
for typhoid but was also bleeding from her nose. It was not until
Oct. 23 that she tested positive for Ebola, WHO said.
WHO said that 43 contacts had been identified and isolated but a
second Malian health official, who asked not to be identified, told
Reuters that authorities estimated that at least 300 people had been
in contact with the infected child.
Hours before Mali confirmed the case on Thursday, WHO Assistant
Director-General Keiji Fukuda said the agency had "reasonable
confidence" that there was not widespread transmission of the Ebola
virus into neighboring countries.
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IVORY COAST CONTACT
WHO and Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has helped
run much of the response to Ebola, were both scrambling teams to
Mali on Friday. A U.N. plane flew one tonne of medical supplies -
including personnel protection equipment kits, gloves, face shields
and buckets - to the country.
On the dusty streets of the capital Bamako, residents voiced alarm
at the girl having spent time in the city's Bagadadji district
before traveling on Sunday to Kayes, some 600 km to the northwest
near the Senegalese border.
"I am afraid because, with my job, I am in permanent contact with
people but I can't afford to just stop," said taxi driver Hamidou
Bamba, 46, in Bamako. "Today is Friday so let us pray to Allah that
this disease will not spread in Mali."
Mali, together with cocoa producer Ivory Coast, has put in place
border controls to stop Ebola at its frontiers. However, a visit to
Mali's border with Guinea by Reuters this month showed vehicles
avoiding a health checkpoint set up by Malian authorities by simply
driving through the bush.
Ivory Coast was on alert after Guinean authorities informed them
that a Guinean health worker had slipped surveillance and headed for
the border after a patient had contracted Ebola.
Raymonde Goudou Coffie, Ivory Coast's health minister, said the
authorities did not know if the medic had Ebola but had to be traced
as he had been in contact with someone who had.
(Additional reporting by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn in Dakar and
Joe Bavier and Ange Aboa in Abidjan; Writing by David Lewis and
Daniel Flynn; Editing by Grant McCool)
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