By Septimus Senessie in Kono and Crispina Cummings in Freetown
The Lassa fever control unit in Kenema was recently in Kono district to collect blood samples from 15 people believed to have conveyed and buried the corpse of 14-year-old Sahr Lafalaywho allegedly died of Ebola.
The team collaborated with the Kono district health management team in Fangamandu town, east of Sierra Leone and close to Guinea,to take the dead body forburial to Boidu village in the Sawabuma section of Sowa chiefdom.
One of the sisters of the deceased, Finda Gabriel, told Politicoin Boidu village, some 35 miles from the headquarter town of Koidu and 2 miles to Fangamandu town, said her brother’s sickness was characterized by blood oozing out of his eyes, nostrils and that he was dizzy after vomiting for long.
She expressed fear because, according her, they had constant body contacts with the late brother while he was being treated and up till his death at Fangamandu town.
“I took care of him throughout the course of his sickness”, she said, subbing.
The other sister, Sia Lebbie, described the disease as “mysterious and simultaneous”,adding that it was in the third week of February of this year when one of their brothers, with whom the late 14-year old stayed in Gueckedu town, Dr. Sahr Zonnersfirst died.
“In the second week of March the same illness attacked another brother, Dr. Sahr Fassa and his wife who also later died. Again their father, Pa Lafalay and last to Sahr Lafalay, 14-year old, all from the same family”, she said, adding that they were all confused and therefore associated the outbreak with “a curse on the family”.
Madam Lebbie said they later got messages of people dying of a similar sickness in Gueckedu and that was when they realised that the sickness was not a curse on the family.
Section chief of Sawaburma section in Soa chiefdom, Tamba Mathew Tenga Kanawa, referred to the condition as “a real problem and security threat in his section”. He noted that people who lived on the border had more businessesin Guinea than they had in Sierra Leone.
He said the people were far away from the country’s health facilities and that the only way out was to restrict their movements to and from Guinea.
Meanwhile, the Lassa team from Kenema told the people to remain calm and to go ahead with their farming activities, as there was no cause for alarm. The team leader, James Bangura, who also doubles as the project coordinator of Meta Biota in the US assured that before the end of the week they would have carried out diagnoses on the 15-blood spacemen collected so far.
The district medical officer, Dr. Francis Jayah, told Politico that after a series of interrogations with the 15-people who came in contact with the corpse of the late boy, no one was infected except Sia Lebbie who had complained of vomiting and dizziness. He said that that notwithstanding they had collected those blood samples to be diagnosed in Kenema.
Dr. Jayah said in the meantime they had handed over medical supervision to the Sukudu community health post which was about 4milesaway from Boidu village.
Meanwhile the chief medical officer, Dr. Brim Kargbo, has insisted that there has been no confirmed case of Ebola in Sierra Leone.
He was addressing members of the parliamentary committee on health and sanitation yesterday.
While narrating events surrounding the deadly infectious viral disease he said that “it has been diagnostically proven that the suspected 14-year-old boy who died in Kono in eastern Sierra Leone did not die as a result of Ebola”.
Dr. Kargbo said results of tests conducted on all those who attended his funeral and lived with him whilst he was sick, had proven negative. He said the symptoms of Ebola were the same as those of Lassa Fever and that the disease could not be detected at its early stage.
He boasted that the ministry of health had a state-of-the-art medical laboratory stationed in the eastern town of Kenema, the same medical equipment that diagnosed Lassa Fever. He said the ministry had also set up a national task force to mount a robust sensitization on the Ebola disease by creating awareness on how the disease could be contracted.
He urged Sierra Leoneans to limit their travel to areas identified as Ebola prone territories, especially neighboring Liberia and Guinea.
He explained that “the Ebola virus was transmitted mainly through direct unprotected contact with blood, other body fluids, secretions or excretions of a person or animal suspected or confirmed or animal with Ebola or had had a possible exposure of one of the following: care for patient who died of Ebola, attend funeral of person who died of suspected Ebola or fruit partially eaten by bats or other animals”.
The chief medical officer further advised that citizens, as a temporary measure, should not bring any corpse from Guinea and Liberia for burial in Sierra Leone. As a result, he said, a meeting was held with line ministries and embassies of neighbouring countries to discuss ways of enforcing rigorous border security measures, possibly deploying medical taskforce teams to check the coming in and going out of people.
He advised against the closure of border posts, warning that that could negatively impact on the economic activities in both countries. He suggested that even the closure of the borders, in the event of such a decision, would not suffice, owing to the porosity of the borders.
(C) Politico 03/04/14
