By Kemo Cham
Almost the entire leadership of the District Coronavirus Emergency Response Center (DICOVERC) in Sierra Leone’s southern Pujehun District has gone into quarantine after the driver of the Coordinator tested positive for the virus.
DICOVERC Coordinator, Mohamed Kemokai and seven other members of his team comprising the co-team of the district’s response effort, went into quarantine over the weekend, a spokesman said.
Also in quarantine with him are the Finance/Admin Officer, Executive Support Officer, Quarantine Manager, Logistics Officer, Spokesman, Data Management Officer and the office Cleaner.
The officials who are quarantined at various government-run quarantine centers went into isolation on the advice of the District health authorities, says DICOVERC spokesman, Mohamed T. Massaquoi.
Kemokai’s driver, Lahai Mansaray is said to have contracted the virus from a health worker who himself had contracted it from a man who died on 4 August from the viral disease.
Massaquoi, who is himself isolated at a guesthouse, told Politico via a telephone interview that they all went into self-isolation on Friday, immediately after the driver’s test result came though as positive. He added that they decided to go into established quarantine centers on the advice of the District Medical Officer (DMO).
Massaquoi said the DMO and the Medical Superintendent of the District Government Hospital had assumed temporary coordination of the district’s response to the pandemic.
Pujehun has been struggling to contain the spread even as figures from the National Covid-19 Emergency Response Center (NACOVERC) indicate a reduction in national cases.
The district first recorded a case of the virus on 18 May, when two people tested positive. On 19 May the district set up its treatment center.
As of Sunday, 16 August, Sierra Leone had a total cumulative confirmed positive number of 1,956. Of that number, 25 were recorded in Pujehun district. 59 others are currently in quarantine with eight in treatment center.
All the district’s confirmed cases have come from three chiefdoms: Kpaka, Makpele and Kpanga where the district headquarters town is. Most of the active cases are said to have come from Pujehun town itself.
Massaquoi said the DICOVERC had just expanded its response by establishing command centers in key towns across the district before this weekend’s development. He described it as “a major setback” for the district’s response effort.
“Now the response is entirely in the hands of the operational wing, who are mostly health workers,” he said.
“It’s a setback because it has created a vacuum in the response mechanism between the operations wing and the government” he added.
Massaquoi said the silver lining was that the DMO is the coordinator of NGO activities, noting that this provided an opportunity for NGOs in the district to up their “lackluster” contributions to the response efforts.
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