By Bampia James Bundu
A local Non-Governmental Organisation in Sierra Leone, Health for All Coalition, has called on President Ernest Bai Koroma "to waste no more time in declaring the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency".
The organisation's director, Charles Mambu said at a meeting with the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone that within one month, over 10 nurses had died of Ebola and that the transmission rate in Kenema was due in part to the interaction between health workers and unsuspecting Ebola patients.
He said the situating of the Ebola wards at the Kenema Government hospital where non-Ebola patients were also admitted was risking the latter patients. He briefed the commission on the closure of schools and banks in Kailahun district.
Mambu said that when the outbreak was first announced in Sierra Leone in May, the country was ill-prepared because "it was completely strange even to some health workers". He backed the request of the health workers for the Ebola treatment centre in Kenema to be relocated outside the hospital.
Acting chairperson, Human Rights Commission, Jamesina King, explained that her commission wanted to continue “adding value to the Ebola fight, share information and brainstorm on issues bordering around the disease”. She said she was particularly concerned about the stigma and gender-related aspect of the disease.
Another commissioner, Brima Sheriff, shared his experience from a monitoring activity he conducted at the Ebola isolation centre in Kenema some three weeks ago where he said issues of patients being disconnected from their families had arisen. He added that stigma against those that had already recovered from the disease persisted.
Commissioner Daphne Olu-Williams also expressed concern about the area of sensitisation “as the aspect of disbelief and denial was still widespread”. She noted that the disease should be contained before it reached crowded communities.
A weekly meeting of the two institutions to discuss ways forward was agreed upon.
(C) Politico 24/07/14
