BBC has introduced a LIVE feed of African News within the News Website. Click on the link: http://bbcafrica.com/
BBC Interview of SL Information Minister about 3-day lockdown
Sierra Leone’s Information Minster Alpha Kanu has been speaking to the BBC’s Newsday programme about the three-day Ebola lockdown. You can hear the interview on soundcloud.
AP
And schools in Sierra Leone are due to reopen in mid-April, not today as we had earlier reported.
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3-Day Shutdown March 27th to 29th
In Sierra Leone the National Ebola Response Center (NERC) has told journalists that another three-days nation-wide shutdown will be conducted from March 27th to 29th. The exercise will be a repeat of the one that was done in September last year and according to the NERC CEO Major (rtd) Palo Conteh, the government and its partners are hopeful the shutdown will bring out latent cases that are not being reported or recorded.
Palo Conteh said the 3-days shut down will be both to re-sensitise on precautions as well as detect possible lines of transmission of the virus. Residents will be expected to stay at home throughout the three days exercise.
The last 3 days shutdown was proven to be very effective at highlighting the extent of the crisis. Sierra Leone has been recording haphazard number of cases. On some days, it will record single digits and then on other days, a sudden spike will be recorded in areas previously considered as virus-free. This is especially so for the North and West of the country.
Until the cases are down to zero for 21 continuous days, the country cannot be considered to be on any footing to start the journey towards being declared Ebola free. Liberia has now gone for ten continuous days without a single Ebola case. However, Guinea is also in the same straits as Sierra Leone with spikes and surges in numbers of cases.
Statement to Parliament by DfID Secretary
This is an update on the UK Government commitment to the Ebola fight
Statement to Parliament: Ebola outbreak: An update on the UK’s response in West Africa
“We owe it to Sierra Leone, and ourselves, to re-establish links”
An interesting article by Mark Leftly in ‘The Independent’, published Wednesday 25th February. Click on the link below:
Children losing parents through Ebola
Click on the link below to see an analysis of children left without parents or guardians!
Early treatment is key in managing Ebola
This is an interesting interview which answers some common questions!
As efforts to find a cure for the Ebola virus gather momentum, Yemisi Akinbola for Africa Renewal caught up with Dr Bernadette Murgue (in photo), the Deputy Director of the French Institut de Microbiologie et des Maladies Infectieuses IMMI (Institute of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases), to talk about issues surrounding Ebola treatment. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Africa Renewal: Prior to the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak, what research had been done into finding a vaccine for the disease?
Dr Murgue: There is a vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that is currently in phase one trials. It has been under evaluation in pre-clinical trials for safety and tolerability. It is being tried on a small number of healthy people.
Why the limited doses then?
There are two vaccines. The one by GSK and they have at least 10,000-20,000 doses. The other one is a collaboration between Canada and America. The most advanced is the GSK one and they have quite a lot of doses at the moment. The vaccine is to prevent, not to treat the disease and was to be given to the people that are the most exposed.
How about those that are infected?
Those infected need to be cared for. We require infrastructure, personnel and hospital equipment. If the infected can get care when they arrive at the Ebola centres as early as possible, the chances of survival increase.
Is ZMapp currently being used widely on the ground?
First of all, ZMapp is not a vaccine, it is a therapeutic. Many times it has been called a vaccine, but it’s not, it is a treatment. It has been given to patients, mostly patients from Northern countries and also to health care workers in Liberia.
Are there any organisations in Africa working on vaccines for Ebola?
It would be good if it were possible to do that. It’s very expensive to develop a vaccine. But in the future, once a candidate has been identified, then why not advocate for a company in Africa to produce a vaccine?
Is there anything else you would like to add?
There’s one main point here, treatment of Ebola at the onset and standard care is key for the patient. That is why we need infrastructure, logistics, human resources, health care workers and all of us to fight this disease.
Do you think the world in general and Africa in particular have responded appropriately and on time?
We know the countries that are affected by Ebola are already in a difficult situation, especially their healthcare systems. Nobody expected Ebola to be such a catastrophic epidemic. It started in a remote area which is not very densely populated and it took a bit of time for experts to realise that it was something different and very frightening.
By: Yemisi Akinbobola, Courtesy of Africa Renewal
– See more at: http://www.sierraexpressmedia.com/?p=72742#sthash.GYG74Wb7.dpuf
Ebola Volunteers uncover 4 Ebola suspects in Grafton houses
On a bright, hot day, hundreds of Ebola Response Volunteers walk through Freetown’s congested Grafton community, armed with a megaphone, posters and flyers and thermometers for temperature checks, they uncovered four Ebola suspects lying down in house.
The four people were visibly sick after a temperature check was done by the Ebola volunteers they were referred to the National Ebola Response Center at Grafton for further medical checks.
The Ebola hotspot busters are deploy rapidly to communities that are considered hotspots of the Ebola epidemic, as part of an immediate response to the Ebola outbreak.
Members of the community themselves, are trained to intensify social mobilization activities and increase engagement of communities to stop the spread of Ebola. They conduct one-on-one sensitization sessions, house-to-house visits and public awareness-raising.
To ensure that the hotspot is covered, the social mobilizers activate youth, women and volunteer networks in each community and reach approximately 9,000 households every week. The Ebola volunteers are involved in active community surveillance and are approached by community members to call, 117, Ebola hotline, so as to refer sick ones to the nearest hospital.
Since the initiative began, the Ebola Response Volunteers have carried out social mobilization in more than 30 hotspot communities with some 2,500; households been reached on their house-to-house visits.
In partnership with Rectour, Volunteers are supported by welthungerhilfe a German NGO is pioneering the project in the hope that greater social participation will lead to heightened awareness and accountability for one’s own community.
The efforts are bearing fruit, in Tombo, Devil Hole and Grafton within the Western Area, community spirit is paving the way for better coordination, reporting and trust of social mobilizers, contact tracers and other Ebola workers in the community.
Manfilla Kellie Marrah the Western Area Ebola Response Coordinator for Welthungerhilfe said over 200 volunteer’s help their neighbours understand why Ebola workers such as the Hotspot Busters are coming into their community.
“We try and make them understand the essence of driving Ebola out from their communities and also making people accept that Ebola is real,” Manfilla Marah stated.
Community leaders also consider the social mobilizers integral to their overall Ebola response. Councillor Ibrahim Conteh from the Grafton community said more than a hundred per cent the social mobilizers have been helpful to us,” he says.
They work around the clock as a member of the community, always with us and always involved. They investigate the issues, go to the homes to educate people and report if there are sick persons to make sure they are taken to the hospital, Councillor Conteh said.
The Sierra Leone Police and the military joined the Ebola Volunteers to carry out the house to house check for the sick at Grafton.
By Saidu Bah
Monday February 02, 2015
Distribution of cases
Restrictions on travel within Sierra Leone have been lifted.
It only needs ONE carrier to move to another community to start a hot-spot!
President Koroma Removes Ebola Restrictions
From Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown
By Augustine Samba Jan 23, 2015
The President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma on Thursday 22 January 2015 removed ban on traveling and movement across Sierra Leone. Addressing the nation last evening on the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC), President Koroma disclosed that the country has taken a downward trend in the fight against Ebola and it was timely for restrictions on movement be eased to support economic activity.
“As such, there will no longer be any district or chiefdom level restrictions on movement. No quarantines or restrictions on movement above the household level will be imposed either by Government or local authorities” he stated adding “But we should not become complacent”.
However, President Koroma supported the initiative of the District Ebola Response Centers and local authorities to enhance community surveillance and community watch efforts.
“These efforts must continue as we move into a phase of hunting down the disease” he posited.
Further President Koroma said they will still embark on the second phase of the Western Area Surge, as they have decided to ease the restrictions on trading hours in the Western Area.
“Trading hours on Saturday will now end at 6pm. However, restrictions of trading on Sundays remain in force” he opined.
He said as they move towards their target of zero cases, by 31st March, hazard pay for Ebola Response Workers and health workers will be removed at the end of March. He informed that they will be reviewing the needs of the sector as a whole, to ensure transition towards a stronger and more resilient healthcare system.
President Koroma said starting from 1st of February this year; they will implement a more rigorous system of payment for hazard pay, ensuring fair compensation for exposure to risk, whilst ensuring that they will not allow people do not take unfair advantage of the system.
“Any persons found to have falsified lists or taken advantage of the system will be investigated” he warned.
He said they will not let the heroic and tireless and zealous works of the burial teams, swappers, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, surveillance officers and others be tainted by those wishing to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain will be held accountable.
He assured that NERC and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation are working intensely to ensure the urgent payment of all back pay owed to Ebola Response Workers.
President Koroma went on to say they are putting modalities in place for the safe re-opening of schools and the target date is the third and fourth week in March.
“Towards this, we have designed a Schools Re-opening Programme that will ensure the following actions” he maintained.
He said prior to the re-opening of schools they will disinfect all institutions which have been used as Holding and/or Treatment Centers as well as those institutions identified as having accommodated Ebola victims.
“Satisfactory water and sanitation facilities at schools; providing educational institutions with thermal sensors; training of teachers on Ebola; safety protocols and incentives to get pupils to schools” he disclosed and further that “school feeding programme, education provisions in place for girls who became pregnant during Ebola period and are unable to return to school; and supplementing teaching and learning at all levels through broadcast programmes will be included”.
The government has designed a promising package for students which include: education provisions in place for girls who became pregnant during Ebola period and are unable to return to school; and supplementing teaching and learning at all levels through broadcast programmes until we have had zero cases for 42 days. He reiterated that until our neighbours in Liberia and Guinea have had zero cases for 42 days, unless the surveillance capacity firmly remain in place so that no new cases can go beneath the radar and until the government built the capacity and resilience in our healthcare system to break the chain of transmission and prevent future outbreaks, the fight against the scourge is not over.
He concluded that although victory is imminent, we must not relent, we must continue to push on, we must continue to refrain from touching the sick and corpses, we must continue to mount and support surveillance and contact tracing activities. “These are the actions we must collectively continue to take ensure victory in the shortest possible time, and intensify the recovery of our beloved Sierra Leone” he concluded.