COVID-19 pandemic in Mali


The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Mali in March 2020.

Background

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
The case fatality ratio for COVID-19 has been much lower than SARS of 2003, but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll. Model-based simulations for Mali suggest that the 95% confidence interval for the time-varying reproduction number R t has been stable below 1.0 since the end of April.

Timeline

March 2020

On 25 March, Mali confirmed its first two COVID-19 cases.
On 26 March, two new cases were registered by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. To address the epidemic which had so far spared the country, in an address to the nation, Ibrahim Boubacar Kéïta, the President of the Republic of Mali declared a state of emergency and instituted a curfew from 9.00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.
On 27 March, 7 new positive tests for Coronavirus: Mali rose to 11 cases.
On 28 March, 7 new cases were confirmed, the total rose to 18. The first COVID-19 death occurred.
On 31 March, 25 persons had tested positive and there had been 2 deaths according to health authorities.

April 2020

By the end of April there had been 490 confirmed cases of which 329 were still active, and 26 deaths.

May 2020

By the end of May there had been 1265 confirmed cases of which 472 were still active, and 77 deaths.

June 2020

By the end of June there had been 2181 confirmed cases of which 591 were still active, and 116 deaths.

Preventive measures

On 18 March, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita suspended flights from affected countries, closed schools and banned large public gatherings. However planned elections in March–April, which had already been postponed several times for the poor security situation in the country, went ahead as planned.