#port loko

[oxfamgb]

This little girl looks on as a team of experts arrive to disinfect her family home and burn possessions after another family member is taken off in ambulance with a suspected case of Ebola. Villages in the area of Port Loko are a current Ebola hotspot with 10 new cases in the village in the last week or so. Most of the village is now living under quarantine.

Credit: Abbie Trayler-Smith

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Rubber gloves drying out in the sunshine at an Ebola treatment centre in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. Credit: Abbie Trayler-Smith

[voiceofarewa]

New Post has been published on Voice of Arewa

New Post has been published on http://www.voiceofarewa.com/2014/09/25/sierra-leone-widens-ebola-quarantine-to-three-more-districts/

Sierra Leone widens Ebola quarantine to three more districts

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma has widened a quarantine to include another one million people in an attempt to curb the spread of Ebola.

The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali, and Moyamba in the south, will in effect be sealed off immediately.

Nearly 600 people have died of the virus in Sierra Leone where two eastern districts are already blockaded.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama has said the world needs to act faster to halt the West Africa Ebola outbreak.

“There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be,” Mr Obama told a high-level United Nations meeting on Ebola.

New figures released by the UN World Health Organization show that 2,917 people have died in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea worst affected.

‘Great difficulties’

Mr Koroma’s announcement follows a three-day nationwide lockdown that ended on Sunday night.

Two eastern districts have been isolated since the beginning of August and the extension of the indefinite quarantine means more than a third of Sierra Leone’s 6.1 million population now finds itself unable to move freely.

During Sierra Leone’s three-day curfew, more than a million households were surveyed and 130 new cases discovered, the authorities say.

President Koroma said the move had been a success but had exposed “areas of greater challenges”, which was why other areas were being quarantined.

Only people delivering essential services can enter and circulate within areas under quarantine.

Skills shortage:

Liberia with a 4.2m population: 51 doctors; 978 nurses and midwives; 269 pharmacists

Sierra Leone with a 6m population: 136 doctors; 1,017 nurses and midwives; 114 pharmacists

Source: Afri-Dev.Info

Ebola drains weak health systems

In a televised address, the president acknowledged that the blockade would “pose great difficulties” for people.

“[But] the life of everyone and the survival of our country take precedence over these difficulties,” he said.

According to WHO, the situation nationally in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate with a sharp increase in the number of newly reported cases in the capital, Freetown, and its neighbouring districts of Port Loko, Bombali, and Moyamba, which are now under quarantine.

The BBC’s Umaru Fofana in Freetown says Port Loko is where two of the country’s major iron ore mining companies operate and the restrictions are likely to hamper business.

The WHO said despite efforts to deploy more health workers and open new Ebola treatment centres in the worst-affected countries, there was still a significant lack of beds in Sierra Leone and Liberia, with more than 2,000 needed.

The situation in Guinea had appeared to be stabilising, but with up to 100 new confirmed cases reported in each of the past five weeks, it was still of grave concern, it said.

SOURCE: BBC News (4)

[maskafrica]

Sierra Leone: SLeCAD Ends Outreach Tour of 10districts

[Concord]The Sierra Leone Chamber of Agriculture Development (SLeCAD) has concluded a successful week-long tour of ten provincial districts: Bombali, Tonkolili, Port Loko, Kambia, Koinadugu, Kono, Kenema, Bo, Pujehun, and Moyamba. The tour was geared…

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