BAMAKO, Mali — Mali on Saturday confirmed a new case of Ebola and said two more suspected patients are being tested, raising concern about a further spread of the disease which has already killed at least five people in the country.

The patient who tested positive "was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment," said the government in a statement.

Mali officials are monitoring 310 people to limit the spread of the disease, said the statement.

Mali's five confirmed Ebola deaths are linked to a 70-year-old imam who was brought to the capital, Bamako, from Guinea, where the regional Ebola epidemic first began.

Authorities are closely monitoring the transmission of cases in Mali and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that the cases were "a cause of deep concern."

At a regional meeting in September, officials identified more than a dozen countries in West and Central Africa that are at risk of being affected by the ongoing outbreak, the worst ever recorded.

"The new cases in Mali remind us that no country in the region is immune to Ebola," Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement Friday. "We cannot wait for new cases in countries at risk before we take action."