Sierra Leone faces criticism on second day of 72-hour Ebola shutdown

Sierra Leone began the second day of a 72-hour nationwide shutdown aimed at containing the spread of the deadly Ebola virus on Saturday amid criticism that the action was a poorly planned publicity stunt. Most of Sierra Leone’s six million people have been confined to their homes from midnight on Friday, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt. Almost 30,000 volunteers are going door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise expected to lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in homes. But independent observers have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out, deeming the shutdown a “mixed success” in the Western Area – the region that includes the capital, Freetown.

While the supervisors were well trained, the visiting teams to families in some parts in the Western Area had poor training and could not deliver the information properly.

Abubakarr Kamara, from the Health for All Coalition, a local charity

"Ose to Ose Ebola Tok" – "House-to-House Ebola Talk" in the widely-spoken Krio language – will see more than 7,000 volunteer teams of four attempting to reach the country’s 1.5 million homes before the end of Sunday. Joe Amon, health and human rights director at New York-based advocacy organisation Human Rights Watch, described the shutdown as "more of a publicity stunt than a health intervention". Steven Gaoja, head of the government’s emergency Ebola operation centre, admitted the first day was "really very rocky" at the start, but said organisation had improved throughout the day. He said the centre had received 886 calls on a variety of Ebola-related issues by 3pm, 102 reporting suspected cases but 238 of which were pranks.

On the whole we came out successful. We feel confident that the initial problems we encountered have been slashed.

Steven Gaoja, head of the government’s emergency Ebola operation centre

Africa Ebola