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Massessehbeh – It had been five months since an Ebola death when Musa Kamara travelled to his hometown for festivities to mark the end of Ramadan. Not long after his sudden death in this roadside village, authorities came with a grim message: The killer virus was back.
Soon officials barricaded this community of nearly 600 people, putting up orange plastic fencing to quarantine half the town for the 21-day Ebola incubation period after potential exposure.
But late last week, residents who could only talk to family on the other side of the fence by phone erupted into song and dance when President Ernest Bai Koroma came to cut it down, marking the formal end of Sierra Leone’s largest remaining quarantine.
Alie Senkoh, 21, said he couldn’t wait to “move all around town” after days of playing cards and dice at home with his aunt and grandmother.
“We’re feeling good because we’re healthy and there is no more Ebola here,” he said. “We believe this was the only way to stop the transmission.”
Even amid the jubilation, there was reason for caution. Authorities continue to monitor dozens of others who came into contact with 23-year-old Kamara, his mother and uncle, who later became infected. Both are recovering, health authorities said.
The World Health Organisation announced Monday that 43 people will remain in quarantine until the end of this week, while 38 others in the capital, Freetown, where Kamara lived, must stay in quarantine until August 29.
Officials desperately hope they can soon announce the start of the countdown to an Ebola-free declaration from WHO nearly 15 months after the first patient tested positive in Sierra Leone.
After the last patient is released, the country must go 42 days — two incubation periods — before such a declaration can be made. The benchmark already was reached in Liberia, only for that country to face a brief setback when new cases emerged.
Billboards plastered throughout Sierra Leone’s capital still warn people to dial the 117 hotline to report all deaths, and others encourage families to “pray from at least one metre away” to avoid contact with highly infectious corpses.
Yet there are signs the country is starting to let down its guard.
The main road from the capital east to the second city of Bo and onwards to the town of Kenema still has more than half a dozen stopping points where passengers must undergo temperature checks.
But hand soap is no longer put out with many of the hand-washing buckets that were once so essential. – News24
Online Reporter