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A nurse has died of Ebola in Bamako, the capital of Mali, becoming the second person to be killed by the virus in the country, AFP reports.
“The nurse, who had been in contact with a Guinean national who died of the illness, died in turn,” official at the Bamako Pasteur Clinic, where the male nurse worked, said late Tuesday as quoted by AFP.
Earlier, tests confirmed that the nurse had been infected by the Ebola virus, the official added.
Mali’s first Ebola victim, a two-year-old girl from Guinea, died on October 24.
The current Ebola epidemic in West Africa started in southern Guinea in December 2013 and soon spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The latter two countries have recently been declared free of the virus.
The most recent estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that so far Ebola has claimed 4,960 lives.
The virus is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. Health officials are thus at the highest risk of contracting the disease.
Although there is no officially approved medication for Ebola, several countries, including Russia, are currently working on trial vaccines.
