By Mustapha Kamara
Handicap International, a local non-governmental organisation in Sierra Leone, has called on the government to “pay special attention to Persons With Disabilities, PWDs, and protect them against the deadly Ebola virus”.
In an interview with Politico, its Social Inclusion and Rights Coordinator, Amanda Crookes, said that many disabledpeople in the country were living in the slums, adding that that had made them “two times vulnerable to contracting the disease than other citizens because of their situation”.
She urged the government to pay special attention to them, especially now that the virus was continuously spreading and killing more people in the country.
President of the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues, SLUDI, Kabba Franklyn Bangura, explained that certain sets of disabled persons, especially those with multiple disabilities, had been marginalised and denied access to Ebola related messages.
Though there were lots of educative messages and information being put out by the ministry of health and other partners, he claimed that those information and messages had not reached the hearing impaired and other multiple disabled persons.
“I feel the information dissemination might be going on well but I am worried about the hearing impaired because there is a communication barrier and I think the government needs to develop a special type of program to educate them more so they will understand the dangers of Ebola and how they can prevent themselves from contracting it”.
Apart from Ebola, he said, people with disabilities were vulnerable to contracting other diseases “because most of them are clustering in slums, dilapidated buildings and in other isolated communities that are open to diseases.”
The rights activist also observed that issues of access to information was still a problem for PWDs as there were still problems when it came to them accessing education, transportation and other relevant facilities.
He urged the government and the Emergency Operation Center to design information and messages on the Ebola virus that could reach down to all sets of PWDs across the country.
(C) Politico 30/09/14
