#Ebola - The Recovery Will Take Years
It will take years for countries affected by the deadly Ebola outbreak to recover from the damage.
That's the message from North East care worker, Calvin Laing, who's been speaking to us exclusively from West Africa.
He's been keeping us updated on his work in the country, where he's working with global children's charity Plan UK.
Based in Sierra Leone, he's recently been in Liberia, where cases of the killer virus have been rapidly dropping.
However, he says even if all the cases were cured instantly it would take many years for the country to get back to normal because of the effects on the economy, health care and education systems.
He told us the heartbreaking story of one man who survived Ebola, but who lost his wife and five children.
Calvin told us more about his work, and said: "Whenever I arrive at the Plan office, my temperature is taken before I can go in. If my temperature is 38 degrees Celsius or above, then I can’t enter and isolation protocols would kick in until Ebola was ruled out.
"Once I do get in, I wash my hands with chlorine. These have become familiar activities for people living here over the past few months. Temperature checks and hand washing are required wherever you go, at least in Freetown.
"I’m not yet over the slight paranoia that I might have a fever (despite feeling perfectly fine) when I’m trying to get somewhere for work and someone takes my temperature – though I suppose I should probably worry more about having a fever than not being able to make a meeting…
"Even before this crisis, mortality rates were high. In 2012, the mortality rate for children under 5 in Sierra Leone was 182 per 1,000.
"The wider impact of Ebola on an already fragile health system could be devastating. For example, we’ve already seen that many pregnant women have been unable to access ante-natal services and health care."
till, routine Ebola precautions continue. For example, whenever I arrive at the Plan office, my temperature is taken before I can go in. If my temperature is 38 degrees Celsius or above, then I can’t enter and isolation protocols would kick in until Ebola was ruled out. Once I do get in, I wash my hands with chlorine. These have become familiar activities for people living here over the past few months. Temperature checks and hand washing are required wherever you go, at least in Freetown.
I’m not yet over the slight paranoia that I might have a fever (despite feeling perfectly fine) when I’m trying to get somewhere for work and someone takes my temperature – though I suppose I should probably worry more about having a fever than not being able to make a meeting…
Photo Credit - Plan UK -
Plan UK's Calvin Laing surveys our work on the ground in Sierra Leone and warns against complacency in the fight against Ebola.
!<a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/assets/images/article-images/C/Calvin_Laing_thumb.jpg "Calvin Laing"">Calvin LaingBy Calvin Laing, Programme Officer, Plan UK
Some of the restrictions which were in force to try to halt the spread of Ebola have now been lifted. There are fewer check points on the roads, so we’re stopped less often to have our temperatures taken.
This has had a major impact on people’s lives. Although it was fairly easy for Plan and other NGO staff to travel around, many people were unable to travel between certain areas in Sierra Leone. Numerous restrictions have now been eased, except where a specific quarantine area has been established.
Routine health checks---------------------
Still, routine Ebola precautions continue. For example, whenever I arrive at the Plan office, my temperature is taken before I can go in. If my temperature is 38 degrees Celsius or above, then I can’t enter and isolation protocols would kick in until Ebola was ruled out. Once I do get in, I wash my hands with chlorine. These have become familiar activities for people living here over the past few months. Temperature checks and hand washing are required wherever you go, at least in Freetown.
I’m not yet over the slight paranoia that I might have a fever (despite feeling perfectly fine) when I’m trying to get somewhere for work and someone takes my temperature – though I suppose I should probably worry more about having a fever than not being able to make a meeting…
Visiting a cemetery-------------------
Last week I visited Waterloo, which is a little over an hour’s drive from Freetown. In December, Plan established a disposal site here for contaminated materials like mattresses and blankets. It’s basically a landfill site – but one with a 24/7 military guard and a security fence.
Beside the site are two cemeteries. One filled up earlier this month, while the other is still in use. Because of the emergency situation, safe burial is required for any suspected Ebola deaths. Organisations like the Red Cross support the burial teams, who arrive in ambulances, remove the body whilst wearing protective equipment, and then bring it to a cemetery like this – or at least this is the case in urban areas, where large burial sites have been the only practical option. So it’s possible, or indeed likely, that most people here did not die of Ebola – though I’m told at the peak of the outbreak, it was probably about one in three. All the same, it’s a very sombre experience.
A human tragedy---------------
The graves are very close together. Land is limited in the area, and given previous infection rates, they couldn’t afford to run out of space. Most graves are simply marked by a mound of earth and a stick, which records the person’s name and also a number, to keep an accurate record of where everyone is and where they came from. In very few cases, families have been able to put a headstone of some sort up. Perhaps the saddest thing is to see the number of smaller, children’s graves, packed together, each with their own stick. There are probably few other sights that could more immediately jolt me into reflecting on the human tragedy of this crisis.
Ebola’s wider health impact---------------------------
But equally, given that most of these people won’t have died from Ebola, it’s a reminder that even before this crisis, mortality rates were high. In 2012, the mortality rate for children under 5 in Sierra Leone was 182 per 1,000. The wider impact of Ebola on an already fragile health system could be devastating. For example, we’ve already seen that many pregnant women have been unable to access ante-natal services and health care.
Household decontamination-------------------------
One of my Plan colleagues, Helen, has been out doing some really interesting work. Helen has been in Port Loko and Bombali, overseeing the first week of our household decontamination activities with local partners in those two districts. Again, Plan is the first organisation to take on this activity on a permanent basis. Depending on the caseload, we could be decontaminating hundreds of households in the coming weeks.
!<a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/assets/images/article-images/Q/Quarantine_distribution_to_house_next_door.jpg "Distributing food and household goods to a quarantined home"">Distributing food and household goods to a quarantined home Food distribution------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another colleague, Rokib, has been working with our team and a local partner to distribute food and non-food item packages to all households in the Ribbi chiefdom of Moyamba, which has been completely quarantined. We started this work in mid-January and have already distributed 5,704 packages. We expect to carry out another 1,000, meaning we’ll have managed to distribute nearly 7,000 in less than one month – a pretty impressive achievement.
Vehicle decontamination-----------------------
I returned to our <a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/news/blogs/plan-uk/from-the-field-ebola-blog/ "From the field: Ebola blog"">vehicle management site at Hastings to check how everything is progressing. Our local partner, who run household decontaminations from this site, have been doing a great job. The number of decontaminations they’re doing a day is starting to come down, though is still a sizeable workload – around 40 a day.
A warning---------
When I get back to the office, there’s a case study from our Bombali office in my inbox. A man and a girl living in the same house had died, but, frightened of being quarantined, the girl’s foster mother had hidden the girl’s body in the house’s toilet without alerting the authorities. The girl’s body was only discovered when neighbours became suspicious and alerted the police. Tragically, in that time the foster mother and another five people had contracted Ebola.
It’s not a nice read, but it’s an important reminder that it only takes one case to set off new chains of infection. As Ansu, a colleague in Port Loko, emphasised, a single case can trigger an outbreak, so to break the chain of transmission, we have to make sure we deal with each and every case as well as we can.
Please help Plan to stop the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – support our Ebola appeal.
Plan UK's Calvin Laing surveys our work on the ground in Sierra Leone and warns against complacency in the fight against Ebola.
!<a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/assets/images/article-images/C/Calvin_Laing_thumb.jpg "Calvin Laing"">Calvin LaingBy Calvin Laing, Programme Officer, Plan UK
Some of the restrictions which were in force to try to halt the spread of Ebola have now been lifted. There are fewer check points on the roads, so we’re stopped less often to have our temperatures taken.
This has had a major impact on people’s lives. Although it was fairly easy for Plan and other NGO staff to travel around, many people were unable to travel between certain areas in Sierra Leone. Numerous restrictions have now been eased, except where a specific quarantine area has been established.
Routine health checks---------------------
Still, routine Ebola precautions continue. For example, whenever I arrive at the Plan office, my temperature is taken before I can go in. If my temperature is 38 degrees Celsius or above, then I can’t enter and isolation protocols would kick in until Ebola was ruled out. Once I do get in, I wash my hands with chlorine. These have become familiar activities for people living here over the past few months. Temperature checks and hand washing are required wherever you go, at least in Freetown.
I’m not yet over the slight paranoia that I might have a fever (despite feeling perfectly fine) when I’m trying to get somewhere for work and someone takes my temperature – though I suppose I should probably worry more about having a fever than not being able to make a meeting…
Visiting a cemetery-------------------
Last week I visited Waterloo, which is a little over an hour’s drive from Freetown. In December, Plan established a disposal site here for contaminated materials like mattresses and blankets. It’s basically a landfill site – but one with a 24/7 military guard and a security fence.
Beside the site are two cemeteries. One filled up earlier this month, while the other is still in use. Because of the emergency situation, safe burial is required for any suspected Ebola deaths. Organisations like the Red Cross support the burial teams, who arrive in ambulances, remove the body whilst wearing protective equipment, and then bring it to a cemetery like this – or at least this is the case in urban areas, where large burial sites have been the only practical option. So it’s possible, or indeed likely, that most people here did not die of Ebola – though I’m told at the peak of the outbreak, it was probably about one in three. All the same, it’s a very sombre experience.
A human tragedy---------------
The graves are very close together. Land is limited in the area, and given previous infection rates, they couldn’t afford to run out of space. Most graves are simply marked by a mound of earth and a stick, which records the person’s name and also a number, to keep an accurate record of where everyone is and where they came from. In very few cases, families have been able to put a headstone of some sort up. Perhaps the saddest thing is to see the number of smaller, children’s graves, packed together, each with their own stick. There are probably few other sights that could more immediately jolt me into reflecting on the human tragedy of this crisis.
Ebola’s wider health impact---------------------------
But equally, given that most of these people won’t have died from Ebola, it’s a reminder that even before this crisis, mortality rates were high. In 2012, the mortality rate for children under 5 in Sierra Leone was 182 per 1,000. The wider impact of Ebola on an already fragile health system could be devastating. For example, we’ve already seen that many pregnant women have been unable to access ante-natal services and health care.
Household decontamination-------------------------
One of my Plan colleagues, Helen, has been out doing some really interesting work. Helen has been in Port Loko and Bombali, overseeing the first week of our household decontamination activities with local partners in those two districts. Again, Plan is the first organisation to take on this activity on a permanent basis. Depending on the caseload, we could be decontaminating hundreds of households in the coming weeks.
!<a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/assets/images/article-images/Q/Quarantine_distribution_to_house_next_door.jpg "Distributing food and household goods to a quarantined home"">Distributing food and household goods to a quarantined home Food distribution------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another colleague, Rokib, has been working with our team and a local partner to distribute food and non-food item packages to all households in the Ribbi chiefdom of Moyamba, which has been completely quarantined. We started this work in mid-January and have already distributed 5,704 packages. We expect to carry out another 1,000, meaning we’ll have managed to distribute nearly 7,000 in less than one month – a pretty impressive achievement.
Vehicle decontamination-----------------------
I returned to our <a class="article-body-link" href="http://www.plan-uk.org/news/blogs/plan-uk/from-the-field-ebola-blog/ "From the field: Ebola blog"">vehicle management site at Hastings to check how everything is progressing. Our local partner, who run household decontaminations from this site, have been doing a great job. The number of decontaminations they’re doing a day is starting to come down, though is still a sizeable workload – around 40 a day.
A warning---------
When I get back to the office, there’s a case study from our Bombali office in my inbox. A man and a girl living in the same house had died, but, frightened of being quarantined, the girl’s foster mother had hidden the girl’s body in the house’s toilet without alerting the authorities. The girl’s body was only discovered when neighbours became suspicious and alerted the police. Tragically, in that time the foster mother and another five people had contracted Ebola.
It’s not a nice read, but it’s an important reminder that it only takes one case to set off new chains of infection. As Ansu, a colleague in Port Loko, emphasised, a single case can trigger an outbreak, so to break the chain of transmission, we have to make sure we deal with each and every case as well as we can.
Please help Plan to stop the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – support our Ebola appeal.