Mali Rushes to Track Ebola After Toddler Dies
By BABA AHMED
ABCNews.com
Oct 26, 2014
After 2-year-old Fanta Kone’s father died in southern Guinea, the toddler’s grandmother took her from the forested hills where the Ebola outbreak first began months ago to bring her home to Mali. It wasn’t long, though, before the little girl started getting nosebleeds.
By the time the pair made their way back more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) to the heat-baked town of Kayes several days later, the toddler had a high fever and was vomiting blood. Doctors swiftly diagnosed Fanta with Ebola, but she soon succumbed to the virus already blamed for killing nearly 5,000 people in the region. Her grandmother, quarantined with a couple dozen others, could only watch from a distance in an isolation tent over the weekend as health workers in hazmat suits prepared the tiny corpse for burial.
There has been panic and fear in this town of 128,000 since news first spread of the girl’s death, which was the country’s first confirmed Ebola case about 10 months after the epidemic began in neighboring Guinea.
“We are in a panic — everyone is talking about Ebola,” said Bruno Sodatonou, a 35-year-old restaurant worker in the town of 128,000. “We don’t know how to protect ourselves. Some are now wearing gloves, while others are trying to avoid handshakes with people.”
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