By Saio Marrah
The Incident Manager for Ebola and Director of Primary Health Care, Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Alie Wurie has said the ministry will start Ebola vaccination for health and frontline workers in the eight bordering districts of Sierra Leone by Saturday, 8th of May 2021.
Speaking at the weekly press briefing organized by the Ministry of Information and Communication, on Thursday 6th May, 2021, Dr. Wurie said this is one of the strategies to mitigate a spillover of the Ebola Epidemic that was discovered in neighboring Guinea in February this year.
He said they have already established teams for the vaccination process and will target the eight border districts with Guinea namely Kailahun, Kenema, Kono, Koinadugu, Falaba, Karene, Kambia and Pujehun.
“We have also included Western Area Urban and Rural because of the wharfs and people travel in boats from Guinea to Freetown,” he said.
He added that the vaccine is not for everybody but for the healthcare and frontline workers in those border districts because they are at more risk of infection.
“We want to protect the health care workers and the frontline workers in case of emergencies. We’re all aware that our borders with Guinea are very porous and we have common traditional and cultural set up within those communities and we have frequent interactions and movements among people. So we want to protect our healthcare workers,” he said.
This he noted was from the experience the country got in 2014 wherein a Sierra Leonean travelled from Sierra Leone to Guinea and returned already infected with the virus.
The frontline workers to benefit from the vaccine are ambulance drivers, burial teams, bike riders and traditional healers around the border communities.
“Traditional healers, because we know that when our people get sick they go to the traditional healers and we are also aware that in those interior border communities, there are not many means of transportation of patients as even corpses are transported by Okada(bike) riders. So we are also targeting Okada riders within those communities,” he explained.
He added that the vaccination process will start with two districts; Kailahun and Kambia considered high risk areas on Saturday the 8th May, 2021, and will later continue in other districts.
He said Sierra Leone has received over 8,000 vaccines donated by World Health Organization (WHO) to six West African countries including Guinea.
Speaking at the event, the Team Lead of the Ebola Vaccine process, James Russell said the vaccine is safe and tolerable, noting that pregnant women, children and people with other diseases like AIDS can take the vaccine without any side effects. He however said that they will be monitoring the people that will be vaccinated to ensure they are safe.
Russell assured that once one takes the full dose of the vaccine which has been recommended EU and WHO the individual becomes immune to the virus.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online 07/05/21
