Sierra Leone Faces Criticism over Ebola Shutdown

Local Editor

Sierra Leone began the second day of a 72-hour nationwide shutdown aimed at containing the spread of the deadly Ebola virus 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," said Abubakarr Kamara, from the Health for All Coalition, a local charity.

Ebola fever can fell its victims within days.

The outbreak has killed more than 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, cutting a swath through entire villages at the epicenter and prompting warnings over possible economic catastrophe from the World Bank.

"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 organization Human Rights Watch, described the shutdown as "more of a publicity stunt than a health intervention".

"Publicity -or really crisis communication -is what is urgently needed in this epidemic, but it should focus on spreading information and building trust with the government. The shutdown is the wrong approach," he said.

Steven Gaoja, head of the government's emergency Ebola operation center, admitted the first day was "really very rocky" at the start, but said organization had improved throughout the day.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team