Sierra Leone News

The "Rescue Team", an association set up by Ebola survivors to help fellow survivors trying to put their lives back together again, is now exploring ways to contribute to the Ebola outbreak response in Sierra Leone.
"How can I make a life when I have no hope? My future is blind," says Sherrie Bangura as he contemplated life after recovering from Ebola virus disease.

Sierra Leone conducts immunization and birth registration campaigns for children under five

In Sierra Leone, the Ebola outbreak has affected all aspects of health care. Exact numbers are yet to be confirmed but it is clear that many children have missed out on routine vaccination services and birth registration during the outbreak. To counter this, mass immunization campaigns are being held to enable children to ‘catch-up’. In June this year, an integrated measles and polio campaign was conducted reaching 97% of children under the age of 5.

The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) was established on 19 September 2014, mandated as a temporary measure to harness the capabilities of all the relevant UN actors under a singular operational crisis management system to reinforce unity of purpose among responders and to ensure a rapid and effective response to the Ebola crisis.

Moses Alpha Turay survived Ebola but lost everything that was dear to him. In the space of one month last year, his wife, his two children, and four other close family members all died of the Ebola disease. “My wife and children died at the same Ebola treatment centre while I was still admitted there”.

When the Tonkolili District reported a new case of Ebola on 24 July 2015, it marked a change in the Sierra Leone Ebola response. A rapid response team was despatched to manage this new source of infection, the first case in that area for more than 150 days. It resulted in a whole village being quarantined, and showed how quickly Ebola can travel and that no district can let down its guard until there are zero cases of Ebola.

Freetown, Sierra Leone, 7 August 2015 - When people who survive Ebola virus disease leave the Ebola treatment unit (ETU), everybody celebrates. However, emerging from the ETU is just the beginning of their long, hard journey to regain health.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – 17 August 2015: Use of rapid response teams and strong community involvement in finding Ebola virus disease cases and contacts is yielding results in Sierra Leone. An epidemiological week has now passed with no new Ebola cases for the first time since the beginning of the outbreak.

“This is very good news but we have to keep doing this intensively-working with communities to identify potentially new cases early and rapidly stop any Ebola virus transmission” said Dr Anders Nordstrom, WHO Representative in Sierra Leone.

Freetown, 19 August 2015 - The UN Country Team (UNCT) in Sierra Leone is shocked by the report that an 18-year-old girl, Hannah Bockarie, was brutally raped and murdered on 13 August 2015 at Lumley Beach, Freetown.  The UNCT condemns this horrendous act in the strongest terms and it calls on the Sierra Leone Government to conduct a prompt, thorough and independent investigation into the girl’s death and to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

Intense surveillance in Kambia, Sierra Leone, has revealed around 75% of deaths have been occurring in children under 5. Even though Ebola transmission was halted in Kambia last month, mothers still are afraid of Ebola and don’t take their young children to health centres. WHO epidemiologists are countering misperceptions to get mothers and their children back to the health centres and lower childhood mortality rates.

Freetown, 22 February 2015 -- Today, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the newly elected WHO Regional Director for Africa, starts her four-day visit to Sierra Leone to get a better understanding of the Ebola response activities on the ground and reconfirm her commitment to the on-going Ebola outbreak. As of 20 February, Sierra Leone has reported 8244 confirmed Ebola cases, including 3066 deaths. While the number of new cases appears to be declining over the past weeks, a mixed picture emerges in different districts.