Mali declared Ebola-free

Mali declared Ebola-free

Mali’s government and the United Nations have declared the West African nation
free of Ebola following a 42-day period without a new case of the deadly virus.
“I declare on this day, January 18, 2015, the end of the end of the Ebola epidemic
in Mali,” Ousmane Koné said in a statement in which he thanked the country’s
health workers and international partners for their work to halt the outbreak.
The country “had come out” of the epidemic, confirmed Ibrahima Soce Fall, the
head of the Malian office of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency
Response (UNMEER).
Countries must report no new cases for 42 days – or two incubation periods of 21
days – to be declared Ebola-free.
Mali recorded seven deaths caused by the Ebola outbreak that began just over a
year ago
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data the worst epidemic of the
viral haemorrhagic fever on record has killed more than 8,400 people, mostly in
neighbouring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
At least 21,296 people have so far been infected with the virus, the WHO has
said,
Mali’s last infected patient recovered and left hospital early last month. At one
point health officials had been monitoring more than 300 contact cases.
Mali became the sixth West African country to record a case of Ebola when
a two-year-old girl from Guinea died in October. It was close to being declared
Ebola free in November before a second wave of infections.