The first case of Ebola has been reported in Mali. Mali shares a border with Guinea, where the current Ebola outbreak began, but it has not seen any cases until now.
"Health Minister Ousmane Kone told state television that the patient in the western region of Kayes was a two-year-old girl who had recently arrived from neighboring Guinea," Reuters reported. Siguiri, a mining town in the northeast corner of Guinea, is the only Guinean district that shares a border with Mali and has reported Ebola cases.
A team including public health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization was already in Mali to help the country prepare for potential cases. In addition, Mali's health department had already put several precautionary systems in place, including a national electronic alert system to help health officials track any cases.
Here's a look at the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the largest in history, with an arrow pointing to Mali:
There have been thousands of cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia; 20 cases in Nigeria; and isolated cases in Senegal, the United States, and Spain.
According to the latest report from the World Health Organization, there have been 9,936 cases and 4,877 deaths reported in this outbreak, although the actual numbers may be three times as high.
