Two-year-old girl tests positive for Ebola in Mali, New York doctor also infected

German volunteering soldiers wear protective equipment as they take part in an intensive course to prepare them for deployment in Ebola-hit countries at the Marseille barracks of the German Armed Forces Bundeswehr on October 23, 2014. AFP PHOTO | BODO MARKS 

In Summary

• In Mali, a two-year-old girl, who recently travelled to Guinea, tested positive for the virus.
• In New York, USA, a doctor who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea tested positive for Ebola.

By AFP
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Mali and New York have reported first confirmed cases of the Ebola virus.

In Mali, a two-year-old girl, who recently travelled to Guinea, tested positive for the virus.

In New York, USA, a doctor who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea tested positive for Ebola.

Mali’s health ministry said the the child and those she has come into contact with have been put in isolation.

"Today Mali has its first imported case of the Ebola virus," the ministry said in a statement. The girl was diagnosed after she arrived at a hospital in the western town of Kayes on Wednesday, it added.

The identity of the infected girl was not released.

Health ministry spokesman Markatche Daou told AFP that she had travelled to neighbouring Guinea with her grandmother and that the authorities were aware of her itinerary.

The ministry said the girl had visited Kissidougou, a town in the southern part of Guinea where the Ebola outbreak was first identified in December 2013.

"Everyone who had contact with the girl is under medical surveillance," he said.

A New York City Police officer stands at the entrance to Bellevue Hospital October 23, 2014 in New York City where a doctor who tested positive for Ebola is admitted. AFP PHOTO | BRYAN THOMAS

Mali's health ministry said all necessary steps had been taken to avoid the spread of Ebola, and called on residents to remain calm.

In New York, the doctor identified as Craig Spencer, was taken to Bellevue Hospital and placed in isolation.

The New York Times said it’s the first diagnosed case of the deadly disease in the area.

He had been rushed by ambulance from his home in Harlem to Bellevue suffering from a 103-degree Fahrenheit (39.4 degree Celsius) fever and nausea, The New York Post reported before his case was confirmed as Ebola.

Bellevue is one of three hospitals in Manhattan and eight in the state of New York equipped to handle patients diagnosed with Ebola.

The West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have borne the brunt of the deadly Ebola virus.

According to World Health Organization figures 10,000 people have been infected and almost 4,900 have died of the disease in west Africa.