By Kemo Cham
Authorities in the northern Kambia District say a total of 19 people have been quarantined as a result of the district’s index case of Covid-19 confirmed on Sunday.
Kambia became the 15th district in Sierra Leone to fell to the spiraling pandemic, leaving just Karene as the only district yet to record a case.
The Kambia case – an 8-year old boy – was among 42 people earlier quarantined after a medical doctor who work in the district tested positive in Freetown after spending days in the district. The medical doctor - Case 404 on the list of the National Coronavirus Emergency Operation Center (EOC) – tested positive about two weeks ago, some eight days since he Kambia after an official assignment.
Officials say the unnamed doctor works with the Ebola vaccine trial programme – Ebovac - which operates field sites in the district.
Mohamed Mustapha Dumbuya, coordinator of the District National Covid-19 Emergency Operation Center (DEOC), told Politico that the doctor spends his time between Freetown and Kambia. He said he last visited Kambia days before the last nationwide lockdown (May 3 to May 5).
“Eight days after his return to Freetown following the lockdown, he felt ill and he later tested positive for COvid-19,” explained Mr Dumbuya.
“We wasted no time to round up all his contacts and subjected them to quarantine,” the DEOC head added on a telephone interview from Freetown on Monday where he said he was consulting with his boss at the EOC.
Dumbuya disclosed that they used three separate facilities to quarantine the contacts: two government owned facilities and one home facility. He said eight of the contacts went into self-isolation.
Among those quarantined were two lactating mothers and the boy who eventually tested positive. Dumbuya said the boy and his mother, a nurse, are currently in the treatment facility, after the mother refused to let her son be isolated alone.
The DEOC chief said he had been given the clearance by his boss in Freetown to transfer the boy to nearby Port Loko which he said had a better treatment facility.
The doctor’s case bring to three the number of health workers who have contracted Covid-19 in Sierra Leone. Two of them are doctors, one of whom, Dr Dr. Samuel B. Seisay, died on May 16.
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