Ebola: Nigerians Stranded In S’Leone

Abubakar Hashim/Freetown with Agency report

Scores of Nigerians are stranded in Sierra Leone following the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in the country, which has led to the closure of the country’s land borders with neighbouring countries to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.

In order to curtail the spread of the disease which has killed 450 people in the country, clubbing, social gatherings, parties and visits to cinema houses have temporarily been banned.

Nigerians have been residing in Sierra Leone for over 200 years, but there was mass migration back to Nigeria after the Nigerian civil war in the 70s. There was also another mass migration immediately after the Sierra Leone civil war in the early 2000s.

The present crop of Nigerians in Sierra Leone are mainly traders who sell consumables and auto spares. There are few professionals in the banking, industrial and allied services. At present, there are at least 50,000 Nigerians residing in Sierra Leone.

As a demonstration of their concern and care for their quarantined compatriots in Kenema and Bo, the Nigerian Community in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with the Nigeria High Commission, on Saturday 23rd August dispatched a truckload of food items to be distributed to their compatriots in the two districts.

Speaking to journalists at Ross Road in the east of the city, the President of the Nigerian Community in Sierra Leone, Ernest Udeh, said the union cares for all its members residing in the country and that they are willing to support them whenever they are in need.

“That is why we have jointly worked with the Nigeria High Commission so as to provide some foodstuff for our fellow Nigerians that are being quarantined in Bo and Kenema,” he said, adding that similar gestures would be replicated in Kailahun and other parts of the country where Nigerian nationals may be part of those being quarantined.

“Our next target is Kailahun and we will ensure that we meet all our brothers and sisters in those parts of the country,” he promised.

“The Ebola outbreak hasbrought everything to a standstill in the country and it has destroyed many lives. We only give praise to God because since the outbreak we haven’t got any information that any of our brothers or sisters has contracted the virus. Our prayer now is for God to remove this disease from the country and the other affected West African countries.”

Also speaking, Consular Officer at the Nigeria High Commission, Miss Tayyibat Atinuke Mohammed, said they would ensure they reach out to their brothers and sisters and give them the help they need.

So far, no Nigerian casualty has been recorded in the ebola  crisis in Sierra Leone. The embassy, in collaboration with the union, has been pro-active in preventing the spread here.

“We are committed to ensure the maximum protection of Nigerians during this present crisis,” said Nigeria’s High Commissioner, Mrs Gladys Quist Adebiyi.

The Ebola crisis started in the Eastern town of Kailahun and spread to the neighbouring township of Kenema, down to Port Loko and the death toll in the capital city of Free Town has increased.

Experts from various international bodies  in the UN had, on different occasions, visited Freetown with strings of advice and support. Donations by different organisations have flourished. The Government of Sierra Leone alone has contributed $13 million to this fight, with a funding gap of  $18 million. Government  needs  $31 million to combat the crisis, within a six month stipulated time frame.

There will be a three-day house to house search for Ebola victims who have refused to show up to be quarantined in Sierra Leone.

Our correspondent resports that there is  a Presidential declaration that the nationwide lockdown would take effect from Friday, 19 to Sunday, 21 September, to counsel and fish out Ebola victims in hiding.

WHO, UINICEF, the Chinese govt and other international bodies have sent in ship loads of drugs and medical equipment on special chattered flights to fight the scourge.

The Sierra Leone Association of Commercial Banks has issued a statement that banking hours should end at 1pm instead of the normal 4pm.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in history has jumped by almost 200 in a single day to at least 2,296 and is already likely to be higher than that, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

The WHO said it had recorded 4,293 cases in five West African countries as of Sept. 6, a day after its previous update.

But it still did not have new figures for Liberia, the worst-affected country, suggesting the true toll is already much higher. The WHO has said it expects thousands of new cases in Liberia in the next three weeks, reports Reuters.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Tuesday she expects the Ebola crisis gripping her country to worsen in the coming weeks as health workers struggle with inadequate supplies, a lack of outside support and a population in fear.

“It remains a very grave situation,” she told an audience at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, via Skype from Liberia’s capital Monrovia. “It is taking a long time to respond effectively …. We expect it to accelerate for at least another two or three weeks before we can look forward to a decline.”

Liberia’s defence minister told the United Nations Security Council that Ebola posed a mortal threat to the country.

“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence. The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our State,” said Liberian Minister of National Defence Brownie Samukai.

As well as struggling to contain the disease, the U.N. health organisation is having difficulty compiling data on the number of cases, said Sylvie Briand, the director of WHO’s department of pandemic and epidemic diseases.

“We know that the numbers are under-estimated,” Briand told a news briefing in Geneva. “We are currently working to estimate the under-estimation.

“It’s a war against this virus. It’s a very difficult war. What we try now is to win some battles at least in some places.”

The outbreak began last December and has been gathering pace for months, but about 60 percent of Liberia’s cases and deaths occurred within the last three weeks, the data showed.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said that Liberia’s Montserrado County, which includes the capital, Monrovia, needs 1,000 beds to treat Ebola patients but the medical charity can only provide around 400 of those.

“We know that every day there are more people that need to be taken care of than we can include in our program. At the moment, there are insufficient beds,” MSF emergency coordinator Laurence Sailly told a news conference on Tuesday.

Sailly said MSF was lobbying other non-governmental organizations and the United Nations to increase their response in the three countries, particularly in Liberia.

“We are working also in Guinea and Sierra Leone, so we will not be able to have more than 300 to 400 beds here in Montserrado. We are not going to go more than that, and it is not going to do anything with the scale of the epidemic here,” Sailly said.

An American doctor infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone arrived at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the fourth patient with the virus to be taken to the United States from West Africa for treatment, the hospital said.

The doctor, who has not been identified, wore a full-body biohazard suit as he walked gingerly into the hospital where two other Americans were successfully treated, television images showed.

Some 33 people are being kept in quarantine in a run-down house in the Senegalese capital Dakar after a student from neighbouring Guinea arrived in the city two weeks ago bringing Ebola.

The student is now in isolation in a Dakar hospital, his condition improving, according to the health ministry.

In Guinea and Sierra Leone, the other two countries at the centre of the outbreak, only 39 percent of cases and around 29 percent of deaths have occurred in the past three weeks, suggesting they are doing better at tackling the outbreak.

The new figures also showed two new suspected cases in Senegal in addition to one previously confirmed case there. In Nigeria, the overall number of cases fell to 21 from 22, as at least one suspected case turned out not to be Ebola.