Sewa News Stream

"Fund the emergency response for Ebola," urges one headline last week. In the op-ed, Koma Gandy Fischbein, a former U.S. Navy officer now a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, made the case why Congress should provide an "additional $6.18 billion in emergency funding to support domestic preparedness and international efforts to combat Ebola. Writing for The Hill newspaper’s Congress Blog, a forum for American lawmakers and policy professionals, Fischbein argued that the United States has the opportunity to lead the way, and support the effort to contain and stop the ugly march of Ebola at its source. “Though there are signs of progress in the most affected countries, continued coordination and support from the international community is required to sustain this progress, transfer knowledge, and support health care infrastructure put in place to reverse the progress of this disease," Fischbein wrote, adding, “Congress must set aside partisan pol...

“Everybody must know what they can do to avoid getting the disease…Everybody in every house in every community in this country is very important in our fight against Ebola.” - President Koroma Health organizations worried Sierra Leone's mandatory quarantine could drive panicked communities into further isolation, and Médecins sans Frontières expressed concerns about where new cases would be treated. But almost two weeks later, a place imagined to be the one of the worst equipped to deal with an outbreak of Ebola is taking serious precautions other than staying at home. Kroo Bay, a sprawling slum in the capital, Freetown, conducted a two-day door-to-door campaign to identify any potential Ebola cases that have been hidden among an estimated beachfront township of 15,000 people. According to Awareness Times , the community came together on the decision to find out the severity of the outbreak in their area following the death of a local herbalist, Santigi Bangura, also known...

From Charge d'Affaires Kathleen FitzGibbon Dated: September 21, 2014 The House-to-House Ebola Talk campaign continues throughout the country and is an amazing show of national unity. Sierra Leoneans have embraced the effort and are welcoming the dialogue. The radio stations are playing Ebola-related songs, public service announcements, and discussions with experts. The people I have spoken to feel that something needed to be done to bring information about Ebola to arm each household for the ongoing battle. Operationally, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, the World Health Organization, World Food Program, United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, MSF, and other international non-governmental organizations are working around-the-clock to get those seeking treatment into centers and testing and providing proper burials to corpses being found. This has not been an easy task and we will have a better idea of what the challenges countrywide are after the districts have an o...

In Sierra Leone, about 30,000 people are going house-to-house covering 1.5 million households between Friday, September 19 and Sunday, September 21 to listen to community concerns, provide appropriate knowledge about Ebola  transmission, prevention, care and treatment, and to encourage families to take sick patients to treatment or observation facilities. According to official information reported by the Minsitry of Health and Sanitation to the World Health Organization Thursday , the incidence of Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone is still rising, with over 200 new cases reported in the past week. Transmission remains high in the capital, Freetown, and surrounding urban areas. The umbers of newly reported cases appear to have stabilized in Kailahun and Kenema, but a number of other districts have reported an increase in the number of new cases over the past week: Port Loko (a district adjacent to Freetown), Bo, Bombali, and Tonkolili, the WHO said.  Reporting for Ag...