By Crispina Cummings
Project Manager of the Dutch consultancy firm, PREACON Food Management, has said that Sierra Leoneans as well as foreigners haveresorted to eating fish because of warnings that Ebola can be contracted through bush meat.
Jeffery Marcathy said in Freetown that even though meat was coming from sources apart from bush, people were generally hesitant to eat meat.
“And most of the fishing communities have not been victims of Ebola,” said Marcathy, adding that Sierra Leonean fishes were Ebola-free.
Marcathy said the fishing communities therefore needed a lot of attention because fishing activities were still going on normally with huge crowds around those communities, which could increase chances of people contracting Ebola.
He said apart from a minimal reduction in the number of boats at wharves, nothing concreted had been done to protect Ebola fishing communities in places such as Goderich, Aberdeen, Portee, Rokupar and Kissy Dock Yard.
“If Ebola enters fishing communities it will be a great devastation for the country,” he warned, adding that those communities required special attention because they contributed to the economy of the country. He claimed that “foreign boats are still fishing in our waters and buying our fishes.”
Sidi Yaya Tunis, who speaks for the National Ebola Response Centre coordinating the fight against Ebola, said they were concentrating on the medical aspect of the Ebola outbreak and “it is not much of our responsibility to stop the disease from entering communities.”
He said it was the responsibility of institutions like Freetown City Council to prevent Ebola from entering their communities.
When contacted, spokesperson for the Freetown City Council, Cyril Mattia, said they were working to prevent Ebola from entering fishing communities under their jurisdiction.“We have banned boats transporting people from known Ebola regions in the country,” he said, adding that they had engaged councilors to organise sensitisation campaigns on Ebola in their various wards. He promised that the council, together with the Sierra Leone Maritime, was monitoring all fishing communities to ensure that they heeded medical advice.
Mattia said they had also spoken with the district health management team to send contact tracers to fishing communities, “but it is not all fishing communities that are under our control, like Goderich, which is the busiest fishing community in the West and it is in the rural area of the district.”
Public Relations Officer at the Western Rural District council, Abubakarr Kanu, said they were educating people about preventing themselves from the disease.
“It is now left with them to do the implementation,” he said, adding that they had been challenged and resisted by the people “who say because we eat Ebola money, we want to prevent them from earning their own daily bread.”
Kanu said UNICEF had trained 90 social mobilisers among whom every village was represented. He said people had come from most parts of the country to buy fish from the wharves.
© Politico 07/11/14
