The Malian government and the United
Nations on Sunday declared the country free of Ebola after 42 days without any
new cases of the deadly virus.
Health Minister Ousmane Kone said no
confirmed cases had been registered since December 6 when the last Ebola
patient had tested negative.
“I declare this day... the end of the
epidemic of the Ebola virus in Mali,” he said in a statement broadcast on state
television ORTM.
The west African country “had come
out” of the epidemic, Ibrahima Soce Fall, the head of the Malian office of the
United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), confirmed.
In accordance with World Health
Organization recommendations, the spread of the Ebola virus could be declared
over after 42 days without any new cases being recorded, he said in a separate
statement.
Kone saluted the Malian authorities
and the different players in the anti-Ebola fight for “weeks of intense work”
that led to the result.
He also praised Mali’s health workers
and the country’s partners for their efforts while urging that basic hygiene
and protective behaviour measures be kept up.
Seven people died of Ebola in Mali.
The first fatality in October was a two-year-old girl brought from neighbouring
Guinea to stay with relatives.
Shortly afterwards, a Muslim cleric,
also from Guinea, died in the capital Bamako. He transmitted the virus,
directly or indirectly, to seven other people, five of whom died.
The last patient to be treated for
Ebola in Mali made a full recovery and was discharged from hospital in early
December.
Countries must report no new cases for
42 days -- or two incubation periods of 21 days -- to be declared Ebola-free.
A total 21,296 people have so far been
infected with Ebola since the world’s worst-ever outbreak began just over a
year ago, and 8,429 of them have died, according to the latest figures from the
World Health Organization.
The vast majority of the deaths occurred
in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
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