By Nasratu Kargbo
The National COVID-19 Emergency Response Centre (NaCOVERC) has on the 24th June 2021 declared the presence of the Delta Variant of the coronavirus disease in Sierra Leone. NaCOVERC has therefore called on the public to comply with the measures that were announced on the 17th June 2021, one of which was for everyone who is age 30 and above to take the vaccine or be restricted to access public buildings.
Speaking at the weekly press briefing, the Deputy Minister of Information and Communication who doubles as Spokesman for NaCOVERC, Solomon Jamiru said the country has gone through the first and second wave and based on WHO’s alert on the third wave and the experts who thoroughly considered the epidemiological data, came to the conclusion that the country is experiencing a third wave of the pandemic.
“We have just learned from the laboratory pillar, based on the genomic sequencing that they have been doing, they have confirmed from two female samples that the Delta Variant is now in Sierra Leone,” he said, adding that it is important to be vaccinated to strengthen the immune system against the virus.
The variant was first discovered in India where it reportedly killed dozens of people within a short period of time.
Jamiru added that it was based on this that the government had to assume responsibility and do the needful to address the third wave, which according to him is “very aggressive”.
He went on to note that unlike the first and second wave, a good number of people that are positive turn out to be symptomatic, “that is why in our screening, which we call high volume health facilities or sentinel centers, we see a good number of people showing up in health facilities turning out positive based on the COVID-19 screening in those health facilities”.
He explained that, unlike the first and second waves where there was an exponential rise, yet a good number of those positive were asymptomatic. However, he said in the third wave, COVID-19 has assumed a “different and troubling trajectory”, with an exponential rise in cases and a good number of hospitalizations.
He added that before the third wave, the total number of deaths was seventy-nine and that it has risen to eight-six. “We are concerned about hospitalizations and case-fatality, this makes the case dynamics around third wave extremely different from the first and second waves,” he said.
He urged the people to adhere to the measures announced in the public notice of 17th June, adding that the measures will be progressive if there is a case surge; he also stated that other measures might be added if cases continue to take that trajectory.
Vaccine Pillar Lead for NaCOVERC, Dr. Tom Sesay said that vaccination is the primary option to control the situation in all countries.
He noted: “It is for that reason that as a country we have set ourselves a target to ensure that 60% of the population all adults over age 18 are vaccinated in the long term. In the short and medium-term we want to ensure all adults above 30 are vaccinated, and that age will be cut off lower in the coming days,”.
Sesay said “we’ve been able to vaccinate a hundred and one thousand people in the first dose of vaccination, and twenty-seven thousand received the second dose”, and revealed that their aim is five million of Sierra Leone’s population.
Alhaji Alpha Khan who is part of the COVID-19 social mobilization team advised Sierra Leoneans to take precautionary measures, noting that the virus is unforgivable and look for weak links. “Weak link is he/she who does not wear mask, he/she that does not wash hands, or practice precautionary measures”, he pointed out.
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