Global authorities said Wednesday that the deaths of a cleric and a nurse from the Ebola virus in Mali went unnoticed and the country is struggling to prevent a major outbreak.

After an Islamic cleric was diagnosed with kidney failure at a clinic, nurses failed to test him for Ebola. The imam had symptoms of the virus when he was being treated at the clinic but medical aids did not connect them to the disease.

Several people came in contact with the grand imam's body after he died. His body was washed at a mosque before being returned to Guinea. The mosque has been put under quarantine

It wasn't until after a nurse at the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako fell ill and died, that Ebola was detected.

"It was a real failure by the clinic," Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, a World Health Organization representative said to The New York Times.

On Wednesday, Malian health authorities confirmed that one of the doctors at the clinic also had Ebola. Since the death of the nurse, the clinic has been closed down while over 90 people have been quarantined.

Health experts are reportedly facing challenges in tracking down everyone who came in contact with the nurse, the imam and other suspected Ebola cases in the country.

The WHO reported that one of the imam's friends died of an unexplained illness. There were no blood samples to confirm the death but it is another suspected Ebola case.

"Most nurses and doctors had gone home when the clinic was quarantined, and I fear the patients will be left without proper care," Dramane Maiga, the clinic's director said to The Times.

The first Ebola case in the country came from a 2-year-old Guinean girl named Fanta Condé who died on Oct. 24.

Ebola has claimed the lives of over 5,000 people thus far.

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