Bye Bye Ebola! Eradication spurs rap song in Sierra Leone

Although it’s not certain that Ebola won’t ever return to Sierra Leone, for now, the country, which has endured 3,955 deaths from the virus, is thrilled to be saying bye-bye.

Americans were among the first on the frontlines of the epidemic, building, coordinating, and leading the worldwide response that would bend the curve of the outbreak.

All three countries have put systems in place that allow members of the public to report any illness or death that they think might be linked to Ebola.

Several members of this family in Bo, Sierra Leone, survived after becoming sick with the Ebola virus.

The traditional method of tracking disease, called contact tracing, involves interviewing patients and other people who come into contact with health workers.

The concern is that of the 69 contacts, 60 are considered high risk and one contact has been lost, so there is a risk of more cases among the registered contacts as well as contacts the organization is unable to track.

Also, the early signs and symptoms of Ebola are nonspecific and in particular mimic those of malaria, which is endemic in the region. Eighteen months after the outbreak began, the country is now Ebola-free.

The World Health Organization, declared the end of fresh Ebola transmissions in Sierra Leone through the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) on 7 November, 2015, at an official event.

The District Medical Health Officer (DHMO), Dr. Kandeh Osaio Kamara said the fight was not an easy task for all front workers, recalling that a total of eleven medical doctors and countless number of nurses died whiles executing diligent national health services.

A statistical model that includes data from Sierra Leone’s health ministry mapped the spread of the virus during the outbreak, highlighting two critical opportunities health responders had to curb the outbreak. Districts are colored by their population sizes (indicated in the legend).

The analysis was conducted by a research team based at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and was published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The authors said Kenema and Port Loko were critical junctions during the outbreak, due to their many connections to other districts.

Even police in their uniforms shows twerking at checkpoints that were set up to prevent the spread of the disease via people travelling in and out of Sierra Leone. Guinea was among the last three countries severely affected by the outbreak.