By Joseph Lamin Kamara
CEO of the body coordinating the fight against Ebola has said Sierra Leone needs more help to tackle the spread of the disease that has claimed more than 1,000 lives since May this year.
Rtd Major Paolo Conteh said that the National Ebola Response Centre, NERC, needed “more support and we need it quickly if we are to bring down the rate of infection and get ahead of the disease.”
He said despite the fact that the international community was on the ground, the most urgent priority was for medical and management teams to staff and run new Ebola treatment centres across the country.
The former defense minister said they needed technical support to the command and control hub and staff to provide management and medical care for Ebola treatment beds, medical trainers to supplement government’s training and additional laboratory capacity. He said the disease was “far ahead of us, running.”
Stephen Gaojia, who coordinates the centre, said the country had realized a huge intervention but “we don’t have all the support we need,” adding that he was “cautiously optimistic” that their efforts would achieve 70% in isolation and care by December.
He said what was fundamental in the fight against Ebola was change of attitude by people. “We can bring the entire world here, but without change of attitude we will not succeed,” he feared.
Meanwhile, on a visit to the northern district of Port Loko, one of the worst hit regions in the country, the head of United Nations Ebola Emergency Response in West Africa (UNMEER) in the country, Amadu Kamara, said UN’s role was to improve the work that government and its foreign partners were already doing to contain the disease.
“We aim to bring together the full range of UN actors and expertise to help these ongoing national efforts to control the disease,” said Kamara, adding that they would work in line with the national plan and fill the gaps where necessary.
He also said that they would provide support in terms of logistics, medical and social mobilisation efforts, and they would improve healthcare facilities including testing centres, treatment and community care facilities and training centres for healthcare workers.
In a press release UNMEER said that the World Health Organisation was already running two Community Care Centres in the country and would soon begin operation.
The statement further stated that UN’s Forward and Logistic Base was being run by the World Food Programme and a new command and control centre in charge of burials was being supported by UK and America’s Centre for Disease Control in the northern district.
© Politico 04/11/14
