Ebola Awareness: Sierra Leone Ebola Lockdown To Halt The Spread of The Disease
Sierra Leone has begun a three-day nationwide lockdown, confining its population of six million to their homes in an effort to end the spread of the deadly Ebola virus by allowing health workers find and isolate cases.
Information is power and the right information can make change. Today, 30,000 health workers travel house-to-house as population of six million are confined to their homes in drastic measure. The aim is to reach every household in Sierra Leone with life-saving information about Ebola.
The reason behind the house-to-house information campaign is that “If people don’t have access to the right information, we need to bring life-saving messages to them, where they live, at their doorsteps."
“We have been sending life-saving messages through radio, TV and print, but it’s not enough. Rumours continue to spread, putting more lives at risk and hampering humanitarian efforts”.
"The fight against Ebola will not be won in treatment centres only; it also needs to happen in every household,” says UNICEF Representative Roeland Monasch.
In a televised speech on Thursday night, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone said, "Today, the life of everyone is at stake, but we will get over this difficulty if we all do what we have been asked to do."
"These are extraordinary times and extraordinary times require extraordinary measures," he added.
The deadly virus has claimed at least 562 lives in Sierra Leona. Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa this year, killing 2,630 of them, in the worst epidemic of the virus so far.
In the three-day campaign, more than 28,500 social mobilizers, youths and volunteers in teams of four will go door-to-door to reach 1.5 million households to share information on ways families can protect themselves against the Ebola virus disease and prevent its spread.
Each group will consist of a health worker, a community volunteer, a youth leader and a teacher, who will knock on every door to dispel rumours and misconceptions about the Ebola virus disease and promote good practices, such as hand-washing with soap, among other interventions. Each household reached will receive information, education and communication materials on Ebola prevention and a bar of soap for hand washing.
The initiative is led by the Ministry of Health in Sierra Leone, with support from local and international partners.
Ebola prevetion stickers are placed doors of each house that has been visited by the health workers.
Way to go!!! "Desperate times call for desperate measures."