Mali battles Ebola outbreak as African toll reaches 5,160

BAMAKO/BRISBANE (AFP) – Mali is scrambling to prevent a major Ebola epidemic after the death of an Islamic cleric and the nurse that treated him as the official death toll in the worst ever epidemic of the virus have now reached 5,160.

The two deaths in Mali have dashed optimism that the country was free of the highly-infectious pathogen and caused alarm in the capital Bamako, where the imam was washed by mourners at a mosque after his death.

It came as the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the outbreak – almost entirely confined to west Africa – had passed a gruesome landmark, with 5,160 deaths from around 14,000 cases since Ebola emerged in Guinea in December.

The WHO and other aid organizations said the actual count of cases and death could be much higher.

In Mali, the latest country to see infections, the clinic where the imam died has been quarantined, with around 30 people trapped inside including medical staff, patients and 15 African soldiers from the United Nations mission in Mali.

Teams of investigators are tracing health workers, and scouring the capital and the imam’s home district in northeastern Guinea for scores of people who could have been exposed.

The deaths have raised fears of widespread contamination as they were unrelated to Mali’s only other confirmed fatality, a two-year- old girl who had also arrived from Guinea in October.

A doctor at the Pasteur clinic is thought to have contracted the virus and is under observation outside the capital, the clinic said.

A friend who visited the imam has also died of probable Ebola, the WHO said.

Burial rites blamed Mali’s health ministry called for calm, as it led a huge cross-border operation to stem the contagion.

The WHO said the 70-year-old cleric, Goika Sekou from a village on Guinea’s porous border with Mali, fell sick and was transferred via several treatment centres to the Pasteur clinic.

Multiple lab tests were performed but crucially not for Ebola, and he died of kidney failure on October 27.

He had travelled to Bamako by car with four family members — all of whom have since got sick or died at home in Guinea.

The imam’s body was transported to a mosque in Bamako for a ritual washing ceremony and returned to Guinea for burial.

Traditional African funeral rites are considered one of the main causes of Ebola spreading, as it is transmitted through bodily fluids and those who have recently died are particularly infectious.

The nurse who died treating Sekou, identified by family as 25-year- old Saliou Diarra, was the first Malian resident to be confirmed as an Ebola victim.

Appeal for resources This developed as health workers on the frontline of West Africa’s Ebola crisis pleaded with G20 leaders on Thursday for more resources, describing horrific working conditions as they attempt to contain the deadly outbreak.

Liberian nurse Laurene Wisseh said health workers had been reduced to using plastic bags in an attempt to protect themselves due to a lack of rubber gloves and hazmat suits.

Ambulance officer Gorden Kamara said there were just 15 ambulances for a population of 1.5 million in the country and one doctor per 14,000 head of population, compared to about 40 per 14,000 in Britain.

“We have nothing,” he told a nursing conference in Brisbane via Skype.

“The shortage of protective equipment at healthcare facilities has led to a high infection and death rate among healthcare workers, which has led to an abandonment of hospitals and clinics.”

Kamara was speaking as leaders from the Group of 20 most powerful economies began arriving in Brisbane, with Ebola expected to be among the topics discussed.

Kamara described how one of his colleagues contracted the virus be- cause he did not have a hazmat suit when treating an infant and the child vomited on him when he was being carried to an ambulance.

According to a statement obtained Wednesday by AFP in the United States, Washington will use the G20 meeting to push the International Monetary Fund to cancel US$100 million in debts owed by Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to free up resources to help fight the outbreak, with Liberia hit hardest and the contagion still raging in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The Ebola outbreak has also hit the world of sport.

Morocco was stripped of the right to host the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations after insisting on a postponement.

Angola had emerged as the frontrunner to replace Morocco as eleventh hour hosts but pulled out of the running on Wednesday.

Organizers the Confederation of African Football are due to announce the replacement hosts in the next few days.