Ebola Survivors

By Harriet Mason

Updated: 28 April 2016

In Sierra Leone, a new initiative offers classes and resources to pregnant teenage girls, who are otherwise prohibited from attending school. Meet Adama, who became pregnant during the Ebola crisis but refuses to give up on her education.

President Ernest Bai Koroma has during a press conference held at State House on Thursday 8th April, 2016 restated his commitment to implementing robust post-Ebola programmes whilst he called for a collaborative effort in the Post-Ebola era of governance.

During the press briefing, the President acknowledged individuals and institutional efforts made by Sierra Leoneans including journalists.

Sorie and Sewa are from the same village, Kebala, in Sierra Leone, they and Yokie are best friends. The three young men came to Freetown together to study as student nurses. When the Ebola epidemic began, they were given the option to work in the “red zone”—the Ebola isolation unit at Connaught Hospital—and agreed, despite the danger. Their family and friends disowned them and they were thrown out of their lodgings but were able to share a small room at the hospital.

Trained to wear the full PPE protection suit, they set to work treating very sick and infectious Ebola patients. They worked the night shift and often lost 5 or 6 patients a night. Sorie describes many patients gripping him tightly until the moment they died.

see more at: https://www.linktv.org/shows/trust-docs/three-best-friends-fought-and-survived-ebola-in-sierra-leone

“I lost my father, my mother, my stepmother. I lost nine relatives, including my husband,” says Aisha Kamara, a nurse at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone who remarkably managed to survive Ebola, even after having treated her sick father. 

Nine family members. Just like that. Gone. “Ebola just came and destroyed all our families,” says Aisha, whose story rings true for many families across Sierra Leone. Now, with the outbreak over (Sierra Leone reported two flare-up cases in January after the outbreak was declared over in November 2015), these families must somehow pick up the pieces and figure out a new normal.