The worst epidemic of Ebola to have ever struck the continent of Africa may not have been making the headlines in recent weeks, but in Sierra Leone the emergency is far from over. On the contrary, the decision taken by the government on Sunday to place approximately 700 homes in a coastal neighbourhood of the capital Freetown under quarantine following the death of a fisherman from the area who had contracted the virus, has reawakened local concern.
While the number of cases has been falling in recent months, over the past few weeks the figures have begun to increase again with 144 new cases recorded in the week from the 8-15 February (87 of which were in Sierra Leone), leading to a total number of 23,218 cases of infection and 9,365 deaths since the beginning of the epidemic.
The data indicates that the World Health Organization (WHO) still has much to do in order to achieve its aim of halting the spread of the virus. What’s more, the UN coordinator for the Ebola emergency, David Nabarro, has stated that between now and June more than a billion dollars will be needed to eradicate the micro-outbreaks of the epidemic.
Nabarro explained the need over the coming months to step up the work of tracing all of those who have come into contact with the virus, stating that, “this would require perhaps 1000 epidemiologists, since there are still around 50 micro-outbreaks in the region”.
It would appear that recent statements from the President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, according to whom the end of the virus is in sight, have been contradicted by the latest quarantine measures introduced to limit the damage caused by the virus and its lethal hemorrhagic fever.
The quarantine, which will last for at least three weeks, has been introduced less than a month after the end to the strict travel restrictions brought into force by the government in Freetown in July 2014.
A slow return to normality
In neighbouring Liberia the situation is better. With the number of cases showing an overall decline, the emergency has subsided and on Monday children returned to school after a six-month break. In Guinea schools reopened on 19 January and Sierra Leone is planning a full resumption of public and private education for the end of March.
Liberia has gone to great lengths to guarantee a rapid and safe return to activities for 5 thousand schools. Monrovia has spent millions to guarantee the 373 thousand students, of which 3 thousand are orphans, increased levels of hygiene and preventative measures in each school along with teachers trained to detect and react to potential cases of the virus.
Many are still fearful, however: the recent case in Freetown has shown that Ebola can strike suddenly.
So too can the discrimination faced by survivors. According to volunteers from the NGO Young Life Africa based in Monrovia, “Some survivors have been denied access to water sources by the tribal community or they have been prevented from going to the market to buy food.” This unfortunate situation illustrates the need to reintegrate the survivors of the deadly virus, many of whom feel abandoned by their communities.
Meanwhile a significant development has been made by researchers working on improving healthcare responses for future epidemics at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethseda, Maryland: NIH scientists have finally been able to clarify the exact duration of the period in which the virus remains active in corpses.
The study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases demonstrates how corpses remain contagious for at least a whole week after the death of the patient, while traces of the virus can remain present for up to ten weeks.
A third of the budget for the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone has disappeared.
Against the backdrop of the epidemic that has wiped out thousands of Africans and scarred the lives of many more, on Monday disturbing revelations were published in the Guardian. The British newspaper claimed that national auditors in Sierra Leone have been unable to account for almost a third of the 84 billion Leones (around 12 million pounds) allocated to the fight against Ebola.
The revelations were was based on a detailed report by the Audit Service of Sierra Leone that had verified the management of funds distributed during he epidemic. The appraisal criticized how, between May and October, irregularities in the administration of the huge economic sums may have actually impeded the fight against the virus and caused avoidable losses of human life.
The report published last week revealed “inadequate controls” on the provision of funds and payments made to hospitals. Furthermore, there is no proof that the money was effectively allocated to health workers on the front line fighting the epidemic: in some cases the resources were distributed with complete disregard for the national regulations concerning procurement contracts.
The report confirmed that the Minister for Health in Freetown was unable to produce all of the documentation relating to procurement contracts worth up to 17 billion Leones, including deals worth 12.7 billion for the purchase of 50 vehicles and ambulances and 2.7 billion for the construction of the treatment centre in Port Loko.
The report also criticized a further murky episode in the city of Makeni, where workers in a hospital went on strike in protest against not having been paid for months. There are rumours circulating that their salaries had, in fact, been paid to phantom workers.
Unfortunately in the country worst hit by the Ebola epidemic, corruption still seems to be the order of the day.
The worst epidemic of Ebola to have ever struck the continent of Africa may not have been making the headlines in recent weeks, but in Sierra Leone the emergency is far from over. On the contrary, the decision taken by the government on Sunday to place approximately 700 homes in a coastal neighbourhood of the capital Freetown under quarantine following the death of a fisherman from the area who had contracted the virus, has reawakened local concern.
