Mali authorities have sought to calm fears after Ebola claimed its first victim in the African country, a contagious toddler who took a 1000km bus journey before being treated.
The World Health Organisation has warned the situation in Mali is an "emergency", and said in its latest Ebola situation report that the biggest outbreak on record has now killed 4922 people, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 10,141 cases reported.
The US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantine for medics who had treated victims of the disease in west Africa, after a doctor who had returned from the region became the first Ebola case in New York City.
President Barack Obama told Americans on Saturday that they must be "guided by the facts, not fear".
He sought to calm a jittery public by hugging one of the two nurses who became the first to contract Ebola on American soil after treating a patient, but has now been declared free of the disease.
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Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita aimed to ease fears after the death of a two-year-old girl, the first Ebola case in the landlocked country, who travelled from neighbouring Guinea.
"We are doing everything to prevent panic," he said in an interview with French radio.
The WHO said it was treating the situation in Mali as an "emergency" because the toddler had travelled for hundreds of kilometres on public transport with her grandmother while showing symptoms of the disease - meaning that she was contagious.
"The child's symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures," the UN agency said.
The girl and her grandmother travelled by public transport from Keweni in Guinea through the towns of Kankan, Sigouri and Kouremale to the Malian capital Bamako.
"The two stayed in Bamako for two hours before travelling on to Kayes," in Mali's southwest, where treatment was sought for the child, the WHO said.
The route made for a journey of around 1000km.
"Bleeding from the nose began while both were still in Guinea, meaning that the child was symptomatic during their travels through Mali."
The Malian authorities were tracing everyone who had contact with the girl and her grandmother and placed more than 50 people under observation.
New York City's first Ebola victim, 33-year-old doctor Craig Spencer, who fell ill one week after returning from treating patients in Guinea, was said to be in a stable condition in isolation at the city's Bellevue Hospital Centre.
His fiancee and two of his friends are in quarantine but appear healthy, officials said.
In the wake of his diagnosis in the country's largest city, the US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantines of 21 days - the maximum gestation period for Ebola - for any individuals who have had direct contact with an Ebola patient while in the worst affected countries.
