S. Leone Ebola shutdown ends
Dr Waithira Wanjiru on August 17, 2014 at Kailahun District, Sierra Leone, putting on a personal protective gear. Prominent personalities are complaining that the West is only paying attention to Ebola now that it has reached its borders. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The country’s chief medical officer earlier said up to 70 bodies had been uncovered
- Only essential workers such as health professionals were exempt from the shutdown, and some 30,000 volunteers who went door-to-door to hand out soap and give advice on halting the contagion
FREETOWN, Monday
Millions of Sierra Leoneans emerged from their homes Monday after a controversial nationwide lockdown during which scores of dead bodies and new cases of Ebola infections were uncovered.
The west African country had confined its six million people to their homes for 72 hours in a bid to stem a deadly outbreak which has claimed more than 2,600 lives there and in neighbouring Liberia and Guinea this year.
“We have an overflow of bodies which we still need to bury but this has been an everyday occurrence since the Ebola outbreak... Now at least we have about 150 new cases,” Steven Gaojia, head of the country’s emergency operation centre, said late Sunday.
70 UNCOVERED BODIES
The country’s chief medical officer earlier said up to 70 bodies had been uncovered, but these were in and around the capital, and results for the whole country are likely to push up the figures significantly.
Only essential workers such as health professionals were exempt from the shutdown, and some 30,000 volunteers who went door-to-door to hand out soap and give advice on halting the contagion.
Independent observers have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out, deeming the shutdown a “mixed success” and complaining about the poor training of the door-to-door education teams.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Meanwhile, Nigerian students returned to school on Monday after an enforced summer break because of Ebola, but lingering fears over the virus prompted the Lagos state government to announce at the last minute it would keep pupils at home for longer.
In the country’s largest city Lagos, Governor Babatunde Fashola late on Sunday said primary and secondary schools in the state would now not reopen until October 8, his spokesman said in a statement.
The extra time would be used to finish distributing personal hygiene and other preventive materials against Ebola infection to the schools, the governor said.
