Relief for families impacted by Ebola flare-up

Sierra Leone is once again counting down the days until the latest flare-up of Ebola can be declared over. As part of the inter-agency response to the flare-up, dozens of people who were in contact with two individuals who had tested positive for Ebola were isolated and placed under medical observation. With the monitoring period now over, they are breathing a sigh of relief as their lives get back to normal.

After confirmation that a young woman in Tonkolili District died from Ebola on 12 January, Sierra Leonean health authorities, WHO and other partners rapidly identified dozens of people who had been in contact with her when she was ill and placed them under medical monitoring for 21 days, the incubation period of the virus. Just over a week later, the young woman’s aunt was confirmed positive for Ebola virus disease and immediately began treatment. Her contacts were also identified, isolated and closely observed for 21 days.

For the contacts of the two women, all of whom have since been discharged from medical monitoring, those three weeks of isolation were an uneasy period of fear and uncertainty........

And there was another reason for celebration and relief. On 4 February, the aunt of the woman who had died was released from an Ebola treatment centre in Freetown after testing negative for Ebola virus disease twice. Her recovery triggered the start of a new 42-day countdown in Sierra Leone. On 17 March, if there are no new cases of Ebola, this latest flare-up of the virus will be declared over.

“The response to this latest flare-up underscores the importance of quickly identifying contacts of a person infected with or who died from Ebola and separating them from the community in order to prevent further transmission,” says Dr Anders Nordstrom, WHO country representative in Sierra Leone. “It illustrates the capacity now in place in Sierra Leone to manage such emergencies should Ebola resurface in the future.”

More on story: http://www.who.int/features/2016/ebola-flare-up-tonkolili/en/