By Mustapha Kamara
Government spokesperson has said about 150 British medics will soon arrive to help contain the further spread of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever that has claimed over 600 lives in Sierra Leone since May.
Abdulai Bayraytay said that was disclosed at the just concluded donor conference in London, adding that that would be an addition to the £120 million Pound Sterling set aside by the British government to assist Sierra Leone.
He said the conference attracted international nongovernmental organisations and other partners who had pledged to donate more funds to the country’s current crisis.
“The good news for us is that many new commitments were made by INGOs.Countries like Australia and Finland had pledged more funds to eradicate the disease”, Bayraytay said.
The government spokesman said the new set of British medics, who had volunteered to come and work in Sierra Leone, would be working with other foreign and local medical personnel to aid the fight towards the containment and spread of the disease “that has killed thousands of people globally”.
Whiles thanking the British government for its support, hesaid that the involvement of other nations in the fight and pledges made so far were pointers to indicate that Sierra Leone could not fight the Ebola war on its own.
“As a government we are very much happy now that more expatriates are coming into the country because their intervention will strengthen our health sector to get rid of the deadly Ebola virus in our Sierra Leone”, he stated.
Meanwhile, he said, the expert Cuban doctors and nurses who recently arrived in the country would be placed at the forefront and in areas that had been declared as hotspots by the ministry of health and the Emergency Operations Centre.
(C) Politico 09/10/14
