Ebola In Mali: Eighth Person Tests Positive In Mali, Which Is Monitoring 271 People For Symptoms

Officials in Mali confirmed an eighth case of the Ebola virus and said that it is monitoring 271 people suspected to have been infected by the virus. Mali is the sixth country to be dealing with the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has so far killed over 5,400 people.

The government of Mali said that the latest case of Ebola closely follows another case, which was confirmed on Saturday, and both patients have been kept under isolation in an Ebola treatment center in the country, Reuters reported. All of the six previous cases, who tested positive for Ebola in the country, have died.

All of Mali's Ebola cases have been traced to a 70-year-old Muslim priest from Guinea, where the current epidemic began. The imam was being treated at a hospital for kidney failure and health officials reportedly did not identify symptoms of Ebola in him. Many people came in contact with the imam, who died in October, as his body was washed at a mosque before being returned to Guinea. After the imam died, a nurse, who had come into contact with the imam, was treated at the Pasteur Clinic (not related to the Paris-based Institut Pasteur or its international network) in Bamako from the virus and later died of the disease.

The World Health Organization is treating the Ebola outbreak in Mali as an emergency and has sent its officials to the country to tackle the spread of the virus.

Mali has also been added to a list of countries whose travelers will be screened when they arrive in the U.S. Health officials will check passengers who arrive in the U.S. from Mali for a fever and require them to monitor themselves for 21 days.