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The UN chief has warned that Ebola might be easing in parts of West Africa but is still hitting hard in other areas and outpacing the international response.
"If we continue to accelerate our response, we can contain and end the outbreak by the middle of next year," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, calling for funding and for health workers to volunteer in the region.
Authorities are closely watching a cluster of cases in Mali linked to the death of a 70-year-old Muslim imam who was brought to Mali's capital, Bamako, from neighbouring Guinea. Health officials did not immediately recognise that he had Ebola.
Officials in Mali yesterday confirmed a new case of Ebola and said two more suspected patients were being tested. Officials were monitoring 310 people to limit the spread of the disease with the new confirmed case "placed in an isolation centre".
Mali has had six Ebola deaths, with five linked to the imam.
"The new chain of transmission in Mali is a cause of deep concern," said Ban, who dispatched World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan to Mali on Friday.
Anthony Banbury, who heads the UN fight against Ebola in West Africa, told the UN Security Council that Ban had ordered his mission to immediately establish a presence in Mali "to stop the disease where it is before it spreads further".
Chan said "we have to really move with speed and scale and have a no-regret policy" in containing the disease in Mali.
She cautioned against complacency throughout the region, where Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hardest-hit.
Banbury warned of "a long battle" to beat the disease, which has spread to northern Guinea and western Sierra Leone.
He said the number of new cases weekly was declining or stabilising, with 55 per cent of known cases isolated and 87 per cent of burials being carried out safely, but he stressed that many cases were still unreported.
Despite the progress, he said, "we are far, far away from ending this crisis".
"It's clear that more must be done to bring this crisis under control - much, much more.
"Having a declining overall caseload was very hard. Getting it down to zero is going to be much, much harder."
Banbury called for "a tremendous increase in resources" especially in rural areas where mobile, rapid response teams and facilities were needed to respond to new outbreaks.
UN Ebola chief Dr David Nabarro said the UN needed US$600 million to meet the estimated US$1.5 billion it needed to combat the disease until March.
He said skilled health workers were also needed, especially in remote districts, "to … root it out from the last hiding place".


A first group of volunteers from Britain's state National Health Service departed for Sierra Leone yesterday to join the battle against the Ebola epidemic, the British government said.
More than 30 NHS workers were to arrive in the capital Freetown today for a week of training before moving to British-built treatment centres around the West African country. The group includes doctors, nurses, clinicians, psychiatrists and emergency medicine consultants.
More teams of British volunteers are due to go to Sierra Leone over the coming weeks.


Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


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Ebola virus

No time to lose in battle against Ebola, says UN's Ban Ki-moon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (centre) and WHO Director General Margaret Chan at a press briefing on Friday. Photo: AFP

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Ban Ki-moon calls for more volunteers and funding as new cases in Mali cause concern


The UN chief has warned that Ebola might be easing in parts of West Africa but is still hitting hard in other areas and outpacing the international response.


United Nations

No time to lose in battle against Ebola, says UN's Ban Ki-moon

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ban Ki-moon calls for more volunteers and funding as new cases in Mali cause concern

Ban Ki-moon calls for more volunteers and funding as new cases in Mali cause concern