Mali confirms second Ebola case

The government of Mali confirmed the country's second case of Ebola late on Tuesday and police deployed outside a clinic that authorities said had been quarantined.

In a statement via Twitter, Mali's Information Minister Mahamadou Camara said "prevention measures" were being taken, but gave no details on the case. Local officials and diplomats said the new case was unrelated to the first one — a two-year-girl from Guinea who died in October.  

Medical officials and diplomats said Mali’s new Ebola case was a nurse who had been in contact with a man who arrived from Guinea and died in late October at the now locked down Pasteur Clinic in the capital city of Bamako.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of sick people, and caregivers and health workers have borne the brunt of the crisis. Protocol calls for those who have been exposed to be isolated and monitored for symptoms for up to 21 days.

By nightfall police had deployed in the area around the clinic, which is in the ACI 2000 neighborhood and considered among the city's best.

Officials said the man believed to have brought the second case of Ebola to Mali was an imam from Guinea. He was not tested for Ebola while he was ill in Mali and his body was returned to Guinea without necessary precautions for the disease being taken, raising the prospect of further infections that will now have to be traced.

The bodies of those who die with Ebola are contagious for up to three days after death, raising the risk of further infection if not dealt with properly.

Mali shares a 500-mile border with Guinea, which with Liberia and Sierra Leone, has been hit hard by the Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people this year.

Mali became the sixth West African country to report a case of Ebola when the toddler died last month, leading to an urgent search for anyone who may have been infected during her bus trip from to the Malian town of Kayes.

"If all goes well, by this Saturday all 108 contacts we were following up will be safe and will have completed their 21 days," WHO representative Ibrahima Soce Fall said Monday.

Two further contacts have been traced to Paris and Dakar and are still being monitored, a WHO spokesman said. They are thought to be at low risk, as are about 37 contacts who have not been traced.

Al Jazeera with Reuters