Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the NGO at the forefront of the battle against the Ebola outbreak, have opened a new treatment facility in Kissy, an Ebola hotspot on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The area has in recent weeks suffered a skyrocketing of Ebola cases, reaching some of the highest rates in the capital region.

Sierra Leone has the highest Ebola caseload globally and health workers complain that the bed capacity for patients remains insufficient specifically in new hotspots. The MSF says the Kissy Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) opened on the 9th of January will help improve improve the town’s access to quality care especially for the pregnant women in the community.

WHO mobile lab scientists at the crossing point between Guinea and Sierra Leone. WHO/Saffea Gborie
WHO mobile lab scientists at the crossing point between Guinea and Sierra Leone.
WHO/Saffea Gborie

“We wanted to move closer to the community and to the patients to improve access to quality Ebola care,” said Marcus Bachmann, Head of Mission for MSF Spain. “This centre will also focus on maternal cases. Pregnant women with Ebola need special care and there is a clear gap in treatment for them in Freetown. We want to reach out to Ebola-positive or suspected pregnant women to provide both quality Ebola care and quality obstetric care at the centre.”MSF says the Kissy ETC, located on the school grounds of the Methodist Boys High School, will open in a phased approach, starting with 20 beds for Ebola patients, followed by an expansion in bed capacity and opening of a referral center for Ebola-positive pregnant women by the end of January. Finally, the ETC will open a triage for pregnant women, where Ebola-suspected pregnant women can be evaluated and admitted to the centre. The full capacity of the Kissy ETC and maternity will be 80 beds.

Luis Encinas, field Coordinator for MSF Spain, described the opening of the Kissy ETC and maternity ETC as a game-changer in the heavily-affected community. “Now patients will be able to access quality Ebola care in their own neighbourhood,” she said.

Beating Ebola

Source CDC
Ebola Fact Sheet as at January 7 2012. Source: CDC

Among the positive news coming out of Sierra Leone is the newly declared ebola-infection free status of the Kailahun district in eastern Sierra Leone. One of the country’s first hotspots in the Ebola outbreak, at its peak in late June 2014 the Kailahun district was reporting more than 80 new cases per week. But the WHO said at the end of December that with the help of its partners, combined with the close involvement of community leaders, the district has managed to beat the disease and has reported no new cases for several weeks.

It warned, however, that there is no room for complacency, declaring that community teams and health workers are on high alert and are ready to react quickly to any possible new infection.

In total, 645 people are known to have contracted the virus in Kailahun and 228 of them have died. However the toll is most likely higher as many infections in the early phase were not reported. The WHO wrote on its website that the last confirmed case in the district was reported on 12 December, and stated that the only patients in the treatment centre have come from other districts.

As of January 7 2015, the 2014 Ebola outbreak has killed a total of 8305 persons spread across nine countries. The major impact has been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone which together account for a death toll of 8289 persons.

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