The first case of Ebola in Mali has been confirmed, the West African country's health minister said Thursday evening. The announcement made on Malian state television by Ousmane Kone said that the patient was a 2-year-old girl who had come from neighboring Guinea. The child was brought to a hospital in the Malian town of Kayes on Wednesday, and her blood sample tested positive for the virus.
Mali becomes the sixth West African country to report an Ebola case — though nearly all the cases and deaths have occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Senegal and Nigeria had imported cases though both have now been declared Ebola-free. The World Health Organization says the disease has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed from half to 70 percent of them.
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