In Mali, a nurse and a patient became the second and
third people thought to have died from Ebola there. Malian authorities said
that a nurse and the patient he was treating at a clinic in Bamako had died. The
25-year-old nurse worked at the Pasteur Clinic, which has now been placed in
quarantine. The government said the nurse was confirmed to have had Ebola.
His patient, a traditional Muslim healer in his 50s,
had recently arrived from Guinea. Officials believe the healer, who died from
Ebola-like symptoms, passed the Ebola virus to the nurse. However, he was
buried without being tested for Ebola. The latest deaths are unrelated to
Mali's first Ebola case, when a two-year-old girl died from the disease in
October.
The new cases in Mali follow the WHO's confirmation
that 25 of the 100 people who were thought to have come into contact with the
two-year-old girl were being released from quarantine. Nearly 5,000 people have
been killed in the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, mostly in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak
a global health emergency.
The Bandajuma clinic is run by medical charity MSF,
which said it would be forced to close the facility if the strike continued. The
toddler's case alarmed the authorities in Mali after it was found she had
displayed symptoms whilst travelling through the country by bus, including
Bamako, on her return from neighbouring Guinea.
Meanwhile hundreds of health workers involved in
treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone. The
staff are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly
$100 (£63) "hazard payment". A few are still assisting at the clinic.
The clinic, in Bandajuma near Bo, is the only Ebola treatment centre in
southern Sierra Leone.
Source:
BBC
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