A doctor in Mali has died of Ebola after treating an imam who succumbed to the disease, taking the Ebola death toll in the West African country up to seven.
The World Health Organization said the Ebola virus was "almost certainly reintroduced into Mali by a 70-year-old imam from Guinea." The cleric was admitted to a Bamako clinic October 25 and died two days later.
Health authorities in Mali say they are monitoring 338 people linked with the country's six other fatal Ebola cases. Most are under daily surveillance.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that all 118 people who had direct contact with the Ebola victims have completed their 21-day incubation period without developing symptoms.
In the United States, meanwhile, a traveler from Mali has tested negative for Ebola at a New York City hospital. The patient will remain isolated until more tests are conducted to confirm the results.
The WHO had updated its Ebola figures Wednesday, saying there were a total of 5,420 Ebola deaths among 15,145 cases in the 2014 outbreak. It cautioned, though, that the numbers of cases and deaths were continuing to be underreported.
There have been a handful of cases elsewhere in the world, including the United States, but the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone remain the epicenter of the epidemic.
