UN says Sierra Leone will be disease free 'in a matter of weeks'

onnaedo

June 2, 2015 6:07 PM

This was made known by UN Ebola Chief, Dr David Nabarro while speaking in New York.

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The United Nations has said Sierra Leone is a few weeks shy of being Ebola-free.

This was made known by UN Ebola Chief, Dr David Nabarro while speaking in New York. He however said stopping the deadly disease in Guinea will take more time.

Said Nabarro,

"The general trend lines are that increasingly, new cases are known contacts of people who've already got the disease, and also when cases are detected they're brought under treatment quickly, and that means that we believe that it's only a matter of weeks before the outbreak is ended in Sierra Leone,"

He attributed the coming success to strong participation of communities, a very coordinated national response, and strong leadership from President Ernest (Bai) Koroma.

Explaining the situation in Guinea, Nabarro said there were chains of transmission in the country which health workers don't fully understand.

He further said communities aren't cooperating with health workers trying to eradicate Ebola because they view them as trying to disrupt their traditional way of life, especially in dealing with illness and death.

He explained that burial arrangements in Guinea are hands-on, which is an absolute no-no in Ebola cases as corpses are still infectious.

Over 11,000 people have died across West Africa since the Ebola outbreak with Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia bearing the brunt of the epidemic.

Last month, Liberia was declared Ebola free amidst wide jubilation after over a year of being plagued by the disease.

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