The Malian government and the UN on Sunday declared the nation free of Ebola after 42 days without any new cases of the deadly virus.
Malian Health Minister Ousmane Kone said no confirmed cases had been registered since Dec. 6 last year when the last Ebola patient had tested negative.
“I declare this day... the end of the epidemic of the Ebola virus in Mali,” Kone 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 UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), confirmed.
In accordance with WHO recommendations, the spread of the Ebola virus can 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 nation’s partners for their efforts, while urging that basic hygiene and protective behavior measures be kept up.
Seven people died of Ebola in Mali. The first fatality in October last year was a two-year-old girl brought from neighboring 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 early last month.
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 WHO.
The vast majority of the deaths have occurred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
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