West Africa Disaster Preparedness Initiative (WADPI)

The outbreak of Ebola that devastated West Africa is out of the media spotlight, and no doubt many of us have wondered what happened to all those debates over lessons to be learned. A panel discussion at the United Kingdom’s Parliament delved into this issue last week.   The event was organised by the Africa All Party Parliamentary Group to launch a report reviewing evidence submitted in response to an inquiry into the Ebola response last year, which included our Spotlight collection.

See more at: http://www.scidev.net/global/ebola/scidev-net-at-large/dfid-ebola-disease-lessons-West-Africa.html#sthash.u9tzVGfh.dpuf

Country Director of UK-based Kings Health Partners, an organisation that currently operates in Sierra Leone, Francis Kaikumba, has expressed disappointment over the abandonment of the refurbished former Ebola isolation centre, after his organisation spent close to a million pounds sterling to rehabilitate and transform the centre into a special emergency unit with 79 beds.

"With funds from the Department of International Development (DFID), we have rehabilitated the centre and the outpatient edifice with extra facilities that are first of its kind in Sierra Leone," he said, adding that a resuscitation machine and oxygen inhaler to help unconscious patients were made available in the hospital for the first time.

He pleaded with the public to be making the best out of the facility regardless of the paucity of doctors at the unit.

He disclosed that the number of patients that visit the unit was increasing by the day and that they intend to expand the project by rehabilitating the trauma ward for victims who involved in severe accidents and become traumatised.