By Mabinty M. Kamara
The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United Kingdom have- in their travel advisory referred to Sierra Leone as a level four country, which means it has high risk of infection of the new COVID-19 variant and therefore warned against non-essential travels to the country.
“Avoid travel to Sierra Leone. If you must travel to Sierra Leone, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel. Because of the current situation in Sierra Leone, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants,” a statement on the US embassy website reads in part.
With the emergence of the third wave of the coronavirus, the country has over the last one month recorded higher number of cases of the virus especially in the capital Freetown.
This led to the re-introduction of preventive measures and accelerated vaccination of country’s population from an initial 20% target to 80% of the population in a bid to curtail spread of the virus.
Public Health Emergency Communications lead, Harold Thomas had earlier told Politico that they have administered a little over 20,000 (twenty Thousand) first and second doses of both the Oxford AstraZeneca and the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines and that people are still turning out to get vaccinated, and that there were plans to buy more vaccines.
Since its index case on 31st March, 2020 the country has so far recorded 6,031 confirmed cases of the pandemic with a total death toll of 112. The Western Area Urban still leads the regions with a total of 3,603 confirmed cases of the virus.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online 12/07/21
