Sierra Leone to shut down for three days to stem flood of Ebola cases

By Caribbean Medical News Staff
In a rare and shocking step, The Government of Sierra Leone intends to shut down the country for three days while volunteers do a house to house search for Ebola sufferers. Reports from the Associated Press (AP) suggest that even bars of soap are being handed out as the Country grapples with the deadly illness. Shoppers raced to get a three day supply of food and water ahead of the national shut-down.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), even though the Country is in its six month of desperate fight against the disease, simple amenities like soap are not properly accessible by all the people. Approximately 6 million people will now be confined to their homes as health care volunteers swoop down on residents’ homes during the three day lock-down.
Since its outbreak, the rate of spread has grown exponentially with health officials and the CDC predicting that every three weeks the numbers of people infected with Ebola may double or triple if there is no urgent action. Days ago, President Obama of the United States pledged 3 000 troops to the beleaguered countries of West Africa with a view to building hospitals, handing out personal home care kits with sanitizers, assisting with public education and shoring up the local efforts.
However, many other officials are saying that despite all efforts some locals are afraid of the volunteers and are suspicious of their activities, going as far as to suggest that it was the volunteers who brought the Ebola to West Africa.
Dr. Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization has deemed the disease “an international emergency” and has asked for international intervention. Meanwhile the CDC agrees and says that as many as 200 000 people could be infected by December 2014 if the disease is not stopped. Reports coming out of Monrovia and other cities suggest that because people have been turned back from treatment centres, people are literally dying in the streets.
The WHO says it needs 10 000 beds and 600 health care workers. Cuba has sent 165 health care professionals while China has built a 105 bed hospital but this is not enough.
Caribbean gets ready
Many Caribbean islands are setting up isolation centres, the PM of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar has asked for a CARICOM summit on the disease and Caribbean nations are advising that travel that is not required to West Africa be postponed.
To date over 5 000 have been infected and over 2500 people have died with over 120 health workers also succumbing to the disease.
Earning only US $2 a day, many shop owners were concerned about how the poor people would survive on three days food. Vendors too have their concerns.
“If we do not sell here we cannot eat, we do not know how we will survive during the three-day shutdown,” said Isatu Sesay, a vegetable seller in the capital to AP reporters.
Britain said it will provide 500 more badly needed beds in Sierra Leone, France says that it will set up a military hospital in Guinea and the US has committed itself to sending military personnel as opposed to health care workers. Only recently two US health care workers were flown back to the US and treated with ZMapp and discharged. A French nurse who became ill is being flown back to Paris for treatment.
French nurse being flown to Paris
Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids, puts health workers at obvious risk. To date, approximately 320 have become infected and close to half have died. A French nurse for Doctors Without Borders who became infected in Liberia was being flown to Paris. Meanwhile, according to reports, British nurse William Pooley, who was infected while working in Sierra Leone and has since recovered in the UK, has flown to the U.S. to donate blood to an American patient, according to the Foreign Office UK.
The confusion, fear and panic continues as the WHO tries to educate a frightened public on how to contain the spread of the deadly illness which is spread through bodily fluid and contact with infected body parts (live or deceased), infected animals like fruit bat and infected meats. The incubation period is 2 -21 days and many Caribbean islands are readying themselves in the unlikely eventuality that Ebola reaches their shores.

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