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.

Following the start of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the intensely-affected countries suspended all large-scale national mass immunization campaigns for diseases like measles and polio. This decision was made as a safety precaution because typically immunization campaigns involve large gatherings of people as parents bring their children to the vaccination place. During the time Ebola was spreading widely, health authorities warned large group gatherings put more people at risk of contracting Ebola.

Freetown, 24 April 2015 – Despite the unprecedented challenges of delivering basic health services in an Ebola emergency, Sierra Leone will hold its first public immunization and health campaign over the next four days aiming to reach an estimated 1.5 million children under 5 with life-saving interventions.

Aminata Kobie is a health promotion officer in WHO Sierra Leone Country Office. When the first Ebola cases began to appear in May 2014 in Sierra Leone, Aminata travelled the country educating health workers and communities about the virus. As the outbreak spread throughout the country, Aminata spent months at a time educating her fellow Sierra Leoneans and visiting resistant communities where Ebola cases continued to occur.

As part of early recovery efforts, WHO continues to work closely with national authorities and partners in the 3 high-transmission Ebola countries on how to rebuild confidence and trust in health systems and services.
Nurse Sai Conteh works at the Kambia Government Hospital and needs to know what to do in case one day a patient with Ebola-like symptoms comes to the hospital. She looks back at what she has learnt and how different her daily work looks like.

Tuesday was a happy day in SierraLeone as children returned to school after many months away due to the Ebola outbreak. Read how the Government of Sierra Leone, WHO and partners made that possible

The last batch of Ebola responders from the Cuban Medical Brigade will depart Sierra Leone on 1 April 2015, following a farewell ceremony with local dignitaries on Monday, 30 March in Freetown. The first contingent of 98 Cuban health workers departed Sierra Leone on Sunday 22 March after nearly 6 months supporting the Ebola outbreak response in the country.

A Nigerian mobile lab has been operating in Sierra Leone as part of the international effort to help test Ebola samples in the current outbreak. The lab saves critical hours by testing the samples rapidly and reducing the need to transport samples over long distances. The lab plans to return to Nigeria to work on Lassa fever when the Ebola outbreak is over.

11 March 2015 - In February 2015, cases of Ebola began appearing among the community of fishermen living in the coastal area of Aberdeen in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Over 20 cases occurred at the same time, suggesting they had been infected by one source, possibly an unsafe burial. WHO and partners immediately sent teams into the district to work with the community to identify all Ebola cases and those who had been in contact with them, to prevent further infections.

24 February 2015, Freetown - Today, the World Health Organization's Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, wraps up her visit to Sierra Leone, her first to an Ebola affected country.