A two-year-old girl has died of Ebola in Mali, in the first case of the disease in the west African nation.

“Unfortunately she died between 4pm and 5pm,” a source within Prime Minister Moussa Mara’s office told news agency AFP on Friday.

The girl’s death has also reportedly been confirmed by the governor of the western region of Kayes.

The girl had recently returned to Mali from neighbouring Guinea, one of the countries most affected by an epidemic that has killed nearly 4900 people.