The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the death toll in the West African Ebola Epidemic to 5,160 killed out of more than 14,000 infections.  The killer virus appears to be slowing down in Guinea and Liberia, but is still a massive problem.  The frequency of cases continues to rise in Sierra Leone.  And now, officials are monitoring a troubling new outbreak in Mali.

The victim in Mali’s second Ebola outbreak is an Imam who fell ill in Guinea and traveled to Bamako for treatment.  But the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako misdiagnosed the reasons for the Imam’s kidney failure, and didn’t realize it was Ebola until a 25-year old nurse got sick and died.  Only then did the clinic contact Guinea and find out the Imam’s family members were dying of Ebola.

“It was a real failure by the clinic,” said WHO’s representative in Mali Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall.

But by the time the Imam died on 27 October, the body ahd already been sent to a Mosque for ritual washing before being returned to Guinea for a proper funeral.  And there’s the problem:  Ebola’s viral load is at its peak in the bodies of those killed by Ebola, making their handling extremely dangerous.

Now, the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako and two other facilities are closed and quarantined, as is the family compound where the dead nurse lived.  One of the Pasteur Clinic’s doctors has tested positive Ebola.  And among the 90 patients and workers quarantined there are ten United Nations peacekeepers stationed in Mali who were wounded in fighting in the north.  The Bamako Mosque is also quarantined.

This week, several people exposed to Mali’s first Ebola patient are getting the all clear and are being released from quarantine.  Like the Imam, two-year old Fanta Conde was infected with Ebola in Guinea and brought across the border to Mali for treatment.  Amazingly, no one else in that earlier episode got sick or died.