Palo Conteh
By Joseph Lamin Kamara
The head of the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), coordinating the fight against the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone has criticised Britain for handing over the Kerry Town Treatment Centre to Save The Children.
Speaking in Freetown yesterday at a joint press conference with the head of the UN Ebola mission, Rtd Major Palo Conteh said even though the country had done well to achieve and even achieve safe burial for 70% of corpses, it “did not do well” to meet the 70% target set by the United Nations to have all Ebola patients in treatment centres.
“With isolation you must have the bed capacity…You must have functional beds, not just beds….and we’ve not been able to achieve that”.
He lashed out at the awarding by Britain of the running of the 80-bed Kerry Town treatment centre to Save The Children saying “ they do not have the expertise…The Brits got it wrong with Kerry Town, handing over that facility to Save The Children who have never run an Ebola facility”.
Conteh however said “I don’t think we have failed, we could have done better” but admitted that “isolation is not done well is Sierra Leone” which he said was fuelling the spread of the disease.
He said the reason for the failure to meet the target was insufficient functional beds in treatment centres, and that they “will do better in two weeks” when he said that about 400 beds would be available at various treatment centres across the country.
Head of the United Nations Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury said the two “targets were set to turn the crisis around” and that in the past 60 days they had been able to achieve by 90% the safe burial of Ebola victims.
© Politico 02/12/14
