By Crispina Cummings
Head of Mano Koya, a community in Sierra Leone’s Western Rural District, has expressed frustration, disappointment while blaming Ebola related deaths on the slow response of the Ebola Emergency Operations Center.
A local headman, Mohamed Shimra Kamara, who claimed that people had been seriously affected by delays on the part of the response team, told Politico that about 7 homes in that community had had positive cases but only 2 of those homes had been quarantined, adding that people were still going in and out of those houses.
“The fact that houses that have had Ebola positive cases have still not been quarantined is a big problem in this area which has recently become a hotspot”, Kamara lamented. He said 5 other houses were very close to the 2 quarantined homes where 18 people were being held.
He said the quarantining of the 2 households was spearheaded by Kemokoh Conteh, MP, for constituency 94. He added that the MP and the councilor for Ward 336 had volunteered to feed the two quarantined homes because the EOC could still not show up to help.
The councilor, Fatmata Kamara, said: “I have contacted all the authorities that should be contacted for this purpose but still no response. I don’t know the protocols that should be observed before a house is quarantined. Maybe it is just neglect”.
She noted that the situation had lasted for two weeks within which period they had had about 40 cases with 23 deaths.
On his part, the MP said that the EOC had on several occasions promised to go to the constituency but had failed, adding that they were still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.
“Presently I have requested for some personnel from the Waterloo police station to help us quarantine the households that had produced Ebola positive cases. They will identify Ebola suspects and stop them from spreading the virus further”, he said.
There is a system in place 117 he cannot verify
When contacted, head of the EOC, Steven Gaojia, said there was a system in place which processed all calls to the special number 117 and channeled them to the central command system for the attention of the appropriate people.
He warned against people calling individuals like him or the chief medical officer at the ministry of health on such matters. He encouraged would-be callers to utilise the toll line appropriately and assured the public that their concerns would be attended to.
(C) Politico 30/09/14
