By Zainab Joaque
The Charge d’Affaires at the United States Embassy has assured that Sierra Leone can beat Ebola if only people have the proper precautions.
Kathleen FitzGibbon was speaking while discussing with journalists on her thoughts about the outbreak shortly after presenting some hospital equipment to the 34 Military Hospital.
“Now I am a big fan of nurses because they are the key in the fight against Ebola, and the setting-up of the Emergency Operations Centre is timely” she said, adding that it was interesting how high the country's survival rate had been. She went on that they did not yet know the reason for the high survival rates and wondered whether it could be due to early reporting by patients.
"It is now known that in communities where people have died they are now coming in earlier and those who were resisting are now coming out” said FitzGibbon.
She also chatted about her recent visit to the affected areas saying: “I really want to commend the work of the people out there, and really it is the unknown people don’t know about what is going on in there”.
She urged that the best possibility to survival was to get to the hospital early so patients' resistance could be strengthen.
A meeting with the doctors, she added, led to her meeting a four-year-old survivor called Baindu and her 20-year-old mother. She was told that when surveillance workers had gone to their town and the people refused talking to them, the young mother came forward and complained of fever.
She tested positive for Ebola and few days later her daughter, Baindu, also tested positive and both of them were brought to the treatment unit in Kenema and were both discharged coinciding with the visit of Chargé FitzGibbon.
“Having fought off Ebola, this young four-year-old and her mother looked fine because they have been able to get their resistance boosted" she said, adding: "When there is no cure your best opportunity is not to stay at home or hide, your best opportunity is to get hydration”.
The other real big issue she said was with dead bodies, urging the suspending of traditional practice of touching and handling dead bodies. “We have to allow the health authorities to disinfect those bodies," she said, stressing that the Ebola virus that killed that person was very potent and would not leave the body until it had decomposed which would take days.
“I am very proud of our Department Of Defense as they are also in the forefront of fighting this disease” she said, and that they had provided the laboratory facilities in Kenema and are also assisting in Kailahun.
She stressed that she felt for the nurses working in the Ebola wards with very sick people knowing that not all of them would make it. “I will also encourage people to send words of encouragement to the staff and the patients, because people do feel isolated in those wards” she said.
(C) Politico 22/07/14
