By Mustapha Kamara
Despite the 3 days lockdown and sensitization process which led to discovery of many dead bodies and Ebola victims, Sierra Leone’s President, Ernest Bai Koroma has said that the Ebola Virus is still alive in the country.
Speaking on the just concluded lockdown, the president stated that the exercise had helped the government to know that people infected with the virus were still hiding, adding that that was because they had not been well educated about the disease.
He said the sensitization process, which was spearheaded by the health ministry, together with other partners, revealed a lot of new things that they as a government didn’t even know about when it came to the fight against Ebola.
He said the sensitization exercise had helped them take note of specific areas like Port Loko, Bombali and Moyamba, where it emerged that the situation needed more attention than other parts of the country.
“We have done well as a nation but the Ebola Virus is still in Sierra Leone. We have to continue fervently in the fight against Ebola. We will not succumb to Ebola, we will make sure we defeat Ebola and after defeating it our country will return to normal and continue to transform into a better country,” President Koroma said.
He said as a government they were still working with development partners to increase the number of treatment centres, especially in major Ebola affected areas. He said they would increase surveillance mechanism, contact tracing and empower burial teams so that all areas in the fight would be strengthened to make the Ebola outbreak a thing of the past. He said they were also considering initiating new strategies to stop the spread of the disease and eventually eradicate it from the country.
He encouraged the public in its effort towards the containment of the disease and to continue adhering to the safety precautions given by the medical experts.
(C) Politico 23/09/14
