Sierra Leone News

In Ebola-affected countries, like Sierra Leone, the lack of running water can make hand hygiene a challenge. Hand hygiene is so important in public health that 5 May every year is marked as Hand Hygiene Day.

On 3 February 33 contacts were discharge from quarantine following the Ebola event that began on 14 January of this year. Their discharge after only three weeks from the confirmation of the index case on 14 January proves that this response did exactly what it was supposed to do – the rapid containment of infection to prevent further spread. The rapid identification and monitoring of contacts in quarantine was key. Four people remain in quarantine in Tonkolili until  11 February.

Mohamed Sesay was once part of an eight-person team of laboratory technicians trained to test for Ebola virus. But as the outbreak exploded and more and more samples arrived, his team was overwhelmed. One by one his colleagues sickened and died. He too eventually fell ill but survived - and is the only member of his team left to tell the tale. Read it here.
"I just can’t remember how I got infected with Ebola," says Mohamed SK Sesay, the only survivor in a team of 8 lab technicians working at the Lassa fever laboratory at Kenema Government Hospital, Sierra Leone.

Before the Ebola virus arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, hospital nurse Adiatu Pujeh and her colleagues at the King Harman Hospital thought malaria was the most challenging disease they faced. But Ebola, which arrived in their midst last September, infecting Adiatu and killing many of her colleagues, changed all that.

Sierra Leone is once again counting down the days until the latest flare-up of Ebola can be declared over. As part of the inter-agency response to the flare-up, dozens of people who were in contact with two individuals who had tested positive for Ebola were isolated and placed under medical observation. With the monitoring period now over, they are breathing a sigh of relief as their lives get back to normal.

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Freetown, Sierra Leone – 4 June 2015: The World Health Organization’s new Representative in Sierra Leone, Dr Anders Nordström, today 4 June 2015 presented his credentials to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in Freetown.

Sierra Leone commemorated World Malaria Day 2016 with the launched of four strategic national malaria control policy documents during an event that attracted partners, government officials and the general public.

The documents included:

In order to address some of the staffing challenges that affect Sierra Leone's health sector, a two-day summit attended by technical and policy experts from around the world was held in Freetown, Sierra Leone from 2-3 June 2016. The summit, organized by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation with support from the World Health Organization and the Clinton Health Access Initiative aimed to lay a foundation to improve human resources for health in Sierra Leone . 

FREETOWN, 5 June 2015 – The year-long Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone has had a negative impact on basic health services, especially maternal and child health, with opportunistic childhood diseases such as measles and polio continuing to challenge an already overstretched system.
So, while continuing to support the push to zero new Ebola cases, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, in collaboration with UNICEF, WHO and other development partners, continues to work to restore basic health services – one of the Government’s priorities in the early recovery from the health emergency.

Mr. Chairman

The Vice President Republic of Sierra Leone

Minister of Health & Sanitation

Representatives from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation

Representatives from the Local Council

Colleagues from the United Nations

Members of the media

Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the United Nations in Sierra Leone, I would like to express my pleasure and gratitude to be here with you today and to speak on the occasion of the launch of the Measles and Polio Immunization Campaign.