Message from Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., Kathleen FitzGibbon: Dated: 08/09/2014 There are some important developments on the Ebola Response that I want everyone to know about. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) and UNICEF will be conducting a nationwide house-to-house dialogue similar to previous immunization, bed nets, and birth registration campaigns. During the “Ose-to-ose tok,” some 21,000 volunteers will be giving out information on Ebola prevention, answering questions, and promoting hand-washing. The three-person teams include a healthcare worker, a community leader, and a youth activist. They will mark every home with a sticker with Ebola messages as a reminder of how to report cases. Please support this effort because it is aimed at attacking this epidemic where it resides: in households. There has been debate about whether three days is enough. Three days is optimal because there are people whose livelihoods depend on selling or farming. Any longer would be crippling. Please stock up or plan for this stay-at-home. This campaign is being done over a weekend to also limit the consequences of a stay-at-home. I urge everyone to understand that desperate times call for desperate measures. Please remember that personal inconveniences are miniscule in the bigger picture, which is that the Ebola virus is far ahead of us working on the response. We need to change it up and start with ensuring that EVERY ONE in Sierra Leone is reached and can participate in the national dialogue. Please cooperate, ask questions, and find any way that you can to support the effort. Another development is the increase and focus of the momentum of the response. The U.S. Government response includes the 24-person Centers for Disease Control and four-person Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Response Team, which have doubled the size of the U.S. Mission in Sierra Leone. The CDC is helping the MOHS target the virus clusters through a data-drive epidemiological analysis of where the disease is spreading. The good news about the bad news is that the truth will set us free. There is no doubt that the situation is deteriorating with tens of cases testing positive daily. The acting Minister of Health and Sanitation presented the Presidential Task Force with the grim reality of the statistics, but more importantly, the story of the data. The story highlights three critical shortcomings: positive cases are not going to hospital and are in the community spreading the disease, people are still not following proper burial procedures, and the sick are being hidden in households where they are infecting their families. The disease is spreading because people testing positive are not being admitted to treatment centers and people dying of Ebola are not all being properly buried. Corpses dumped on the street are still infectious. Positive cases are in our communities, spreading the virus. I want to be very clear, if you are positive for Ebola, do not kill your family by being treated at home. I urge health care professionals not to treat positive cases in their homes. This is a reason that the virus is spreading among health care workers, who may be treating friends or family outside of a hospital setting. I can assure you that the international community is working overtime with the Ministry to get treatment centers built and staffed. This includes training and incentives for those willing to serve on the front line. My parting words today are: people who test positive, but do not go to health centers do not survive. People who test positive and get early treatment have survived. There are 250 survivors who can attest to that. The OFDA team and other donors are funding non-governmental organizations that will be providing human resources and personnel to staff the new treatment centers. The idea is to ramp up the treatment facilities to match demand and to improve the delivery of services in them. The Lakka Facility will be completed September 15 and another will be coming on-line in Kerry Town. Holding and treatment centers will be built in several regions. These things take some time and I urge everyone to ask what you can do to help the government and international organizations get them done. Source: U.S. Department of State: Embassy Freetown, Sierra Leone
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 18:21:37 +0000
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