The World Health Organisation has warned that a toddler who brought Ebola to Mali was bleeding from her nose during her journey on public transport and may have infected many people.
The WHO said it is treating the situation in Mali as an emergency.
The two-year-old girl, who travelled from Guinea with her grandmother, tested positive for Ebola yesterday. That makes Mali the sixth West African country to record a case of the disease.
The WHO said that the girl and her grandmother passed through several towns in Mali on their trip from Guinea and spent two hours in the Malian capital of Bamako before ending up in the western city of Kayes.
The girl first went to a clinic in Mali on Monday and she was initially treated for typhoid, which she tested positive for. When she did not improve, she was tested for Ebola, and she is now being treated in isolation in Kayes.
Mali has long been considered highly vulnerable to Ebola’s spread since it shares a border with the Ebola-hit countries of Guinea and Senegal, and staff from WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were already there helping to prepare for a case. More WHO staff are being deployed.
The Ebola outbreak began in Guinea and has since spread to five other West African countries. The virus has also been imported to Spain and the United States.
In the Mali case, the girl was visibly sick and the WHO said an initial investigation has identified 43 people, including 10 health workers, she came into close contact with who are being monitored for symptoms and held in isolation.
“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,” the agency said.