Sierra Leone orders Ebola lockdown; more aid workers evacuated

Friday, March 20, 2015
By Paul Martin

Lisa Schnirring
CIDRAP News
Mar 19, 2015

Despite recent gains in battling Ebola, Sierra Leone’s government today announced a new quarantine for the western part of the country, a move that it says could help meet a mid-April goal of eliminating the disease.

In other developments, more US health workers were evacuated from Sierra Leone amid new details about how they may have been exposed to the virus, and a vaccine expert pushed for governments and donors to pull together to develop vaccines against Ebola and other emerging disease threats.

Lockdown ordered for Mar 27-29
Palo Conteh, head of Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Centre, said the lockdown will be conducted from Mar 27 to 29, similar to one it conducted in September, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported today.

Last fall the government ordered a nationwide lockdown to help outbreak responders go door to door to identify people with symptoms and provide information about the disease. The step was criticized by some as likely to do more harm than good.

The new quarantine will affect about 2.5 million people in western Sierra Leone, where most of the country’s cases are still being reported, according to the AFP report. The area includes Freetown and Bombali and Port Loko districts to the north.

In mid-February, leaders from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone met and set a goal of reducing cases to zero in 60 days, which United Nations Ebola response leaders said at the time would be extremely difficult.

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