By Umaru Fofana
The date was 31 March 2020. A Sierra Leonean businessman – in his mid-30s – who had flown in from France – tested positive for the coronavirus in Freetown. The country became the last in West Africa and one of the last five – or so – on the entire continent to fall to the raging virus.
It was a good thing that Alphajor was married to a medical doctor. He had been given a clean bill of health to go home by the health care workers assigned to the hotel where he’d been quarantined for 14 days – the incubation period – since his arrival from Paris.
After that release, and his certificate clearing him of the virus, he telephoned to tell his wife the good news. However, he was honest enough to tell her also that he was having some symptoms that were consistent with Covid19. She advised him to not go home but rather to report himself at the 34 Military Hospital. By the way 34 Military Hospital and the Dr Khan Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Centre in Kenema were the only places ready for a response. And I suppose that was in their nature and not necessarily because anyone had readied them for the Covid19 response. Alphajor obliged and became the country’s first confirmed Covid19 patient.
In the lead up to confirming that index case, President Julius Maada Bio had visited two of the main would-be entry points of the virus. At the Lungi airport he encouraged workers and residents in the surrounding villages to pay heed to the corona virus, stressing there was no doubt the virus was real.
In Kambia, on the border with Guinea, he made the same plea. He warned workers at the crossing points to be vigilant. He told residents to be watchful in case someone from Guinea came across with the virus. In a country where piped water is a pipe dream for most people, plastic buckets were rolled out. Soaps were provided. Handwashing routine was encouraged. The wearing of face masks was trumpeted, even if there still is reluctance to heading some or all of the advice.
Vice President, Dr Juldeh Jalloh did the same in Pujehun District on the border with Liberia.
Not long after those engagements, the government imposed measures tougher than those introduced in any of the neighbouring countries. They included the automatic quarantining of anyone who arrived from a country that had registered 50 cases of Covid19 and above. Then our airspace was closed – before Liberia did, before Guinea did. And eventually the land borders were shut.
It all sounded like a perfect response to a virus that had hitherto not even arrived in the country – as far as we knew. My gut instinct told me at the time that, like with all viruses, it had been here undetected.
100 days since the first confirmed case of the coronavirus was recorded in the country, the virus seems to be far ahead of Sierra Leone. There might have been sound brilliant policy announcements, but the follow-through was ignored. Engagement was minimal, if not lacking. The community approach was discountenanced. The utilised communication strategy was poor. Consequently there was denial galore. The public became circumspect. Tough measures compounded by poverty made good look evil. I blame all of us for it – yes! But I blame the authorities the more.
Within 100 days, 8 July 2020, we are hovering around 1,600 cases with more than 60 deaths. Our contract-tracing ability was lost very early on in the response. Whoever briefed the president to say that we were ready as a country did not do him favours. Nor did they the country. They lied to him and to us. We were absolutely not ready.
It is shocking and disappointing that up to this stage there is only one Covid-19 laboratory in the entire provinces. So that samples have to be taken to places hours away for testing. And even that, the Tulane University-sponsored laboratory predates even the Ebola outbreak let alone the present pandemic. And I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that until the weekend, almost 100 days into the pandemic, Covid19 patients in Bo District had to still be brought all the way down to Freetown because there was not a single treatment centre in the whole district.
I also do not understand why health workers cannot get paid their weekly hazard money, months on. No matter the discrepancies in the list of those claiming the allowances – and I absolutely respect efforts to ensure due diligence especially with state resources – I refuse to comprehend why those whose names can be verified were not paid while the suspect names were being verified. This whole payment imbroglio has raised a whole lot of furore over the response, especially so when brand new vehicles could be procured smoothly and speedily for the big guys leading the response. Worse, some of the vehicles were given to some ministers who already had official vehicles and have not given up the other one.
It is also heart-rending that the quarantine efforts were a huge mess – even if there has been a substantial improvement in the last month or so. Again there had been no preparations let alone dry runs run in readiness for the isolation of cases that would eventually be suspected to be carrying the virus. That all these measures have still not been perfected is inexcusable.
The health ministry has been a serious problem in the response to the pandemic. Many people I have spoken with at both the WHO and within NACOVERC have singled out the ministry for a flack. It is the ministry that employs – or contracts – and deploys health workers especially doctors, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and ambulance drivers. Any delay in putting together the lists of those in deployment should be blamed on the ministry.
We can blame the health workers for going on strike, in the middle of a pandemic for all we care. But for the same reason of us being in the middle of a pandemic, you don’t joke with the welfare of especially the frontline responders. In as much the same way as you don’t joke with the welfare of your frontline troops in a war. WAR means Weapon, Ammunition and Ration. How do you expect them to fight without those three items? In all this, some health workers have succumbed to the virus.
That does not take away the fact that there are dedicated men and women at both the NACOVERC and the entirety of the health ministry who work seven days a week and go for days without a decent sleep – confronting the virus. They have also not been paid their hazard allowances. They include the soldiers at both the isolation units and at the response centre.
In case you did not know, Alphajor pulled through and is hale and hearty again. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of many others. But in all this, thankfully, there seems to be a far more scary response to the virus than stigma towards survivors or even. Ebola survivors suffered far more stigma.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that the coronavirus is here for some time yet. And it is in our interest to tame our behaviour and not assume that it is a bad joke or even a dream. Wash your hands with soap as regularly as you come by water. Avoid crowded places and use a face mask when you are away from home.
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