New Ebola case in Mali; two more suspected

The patient who tested positive "was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment," said the government in a statement. Mali officials are monitoring 310 people to limit the spread of the disease, said the statement. Mali's five confirmed Ebola deaths are linked to a 70-year-old imam who was brought to the capital, Bamako, from Guinea, where the regional Ebola epidemic first began. Authorities are closely monitoring the transmission of cases in Mali and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that the cases were "a cause of deep concern." At a regional meeting in September, officials identified more than a dozen countries in West and Central Africa that are at risk of being affected by the ongoing outbreak, the worst ever recorded. "The new cases in Mali remind us that no country in the region is immune to Ebola," Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement Friday. "We cannot wait for new cases in countries at risk before we take action." The first wave of volunteers from Britain's National Health Service arrived in Sierra Leone Saturday amid what the World Health Organization has described as an "intense" surge in cases. More than 30 NHS staffers, including general practitioners and nurses, were expected to stay in Freetown, the capital, for one week of training before moving to treatment centers across the country, Britain's Department for International Development said in a statement. They join nearly 1,000 British soldiers, scientists and aid workers already in the country participating in the Ebola fight, International Development Secretary Justine Greening said. "To beat Ebola we desperately need the experience and dedication of skilled doctors and nurses to care for the thousands of sick and dying patients who are not receiving the treatment they need," Greening said. Ebola is believed to have killed more than 1,200 people in Sierra Leone and more than 5,400 across West Africa, according to WHO figures. Only 13 percent of Sierra Leone's Ebola patients had been isolated, according to a WHO report released this week.

Source: Arab News