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. 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 โ 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. 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. Read more ยป Relief for families impacted by Ebola flare-up 19 February 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. Read the full story. 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 June 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.
