Follow @{0}IFRC health worker in a PPE near Kenema, Sierra LeoneNAIROBI, 14 October 2014 (IRIN) – Hanna Majanen summed it up best: “It is the things you do automatically that are difficult. People will touch their face, rub their eyes and bite their fingernails. These are the things you forget.” As medical focal point for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Liberia, Majanen is well-versed in the rules and recommendations laid down by the organization for its frontline workers treating Ebola patients. MSF, along with organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Author: ARIN News
Follow @{0}Life appears normal on the streets of Kenema.Kenema/Freetown, 10 October 2014 (IRIN) – We set off by jeep from the capital Freetown for Kenema, 240km away. While there are Stop Ebola posters all over the capital, we see very few en route. Every 15 minutes or so we’re stopped at an Ebola monitoring checkpoint to have our temperatures taken and to wash our hands in chlorinated water. Thirteen in all – it’s enough to make anyone paranoid. Six Ebola-hit districts, including Kailahun, Kenema, Port Loko, Bombali, Mayambo and parts of Freetown, are “isolated” across the country, meaning locals need a…
Follow @{0}Hawa Natou and her newborn at Kenema Government HospitalMONROVIA/FREETOWN/KENEMA, 8 October 2014 (IRIN) – Maternal and infant deaths in Liberia and Sierra Leone are set to rise above their current alarming rates as fear of Ebola keeps pregnant women away from hospitals and makes already-scarce health workers reluctant to deliver babies.“At the beginning of the outbreak, health service staff were the ones getting Ebola – many of them were dying. And they had no facilities to help sufferers. People grew terrified and when news spread, everyone got scared,” said the head of maternal health for the UN Children’s Fund…
Follow @{0}Refugees get treatment against diarrhoea and malariaMAROUA, 6 October 2014 (IRIN) – Thousands of Nigerians who have fled attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram are crowded into Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon’s Far North Region, living in increasingly squalid conditions and at risk of contracting measles and other diseases, according to relief agencies.The camp’s population over the past four weeks has risen from 6,000 to 15,000, says the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), putting a severe strain on camp services.“The population has reached a level where more urgent actions need to be taken to build more tents and provide…
A market in Lagos – Ebola could have been so much worseLAGOS, 30 September 2014 (IRIN) – When an Internet message announcing a salt water solution for Ebola went viral in July, many Nigerians were quick to take heed. Twenty people were hospitalized and two died, reportedly from an excessive intake of salt. Madam Franca was among those ready to believe in the power of salt water. “My niece, who happens to be a nurse, sent me an SMS that early morning, and I obeyed it,” Franca explained. “I had to do anything to stop Ebola from coming close to me.…
Follow @{0}Ebola doctor wearing protective gear (file photo)DAKAR/OUGADOUGOU, 22 September 2014 (IRIN) – As the Ebola caseload rises to over 5,350, aid agencies and governments in countries not yet affected by the deadly virus are gearing up for its potential spread across new borders by pre-positioning supplies, training health workers, identifying isolation centres, and disseminating prevention campaign messages, among other activities. Countries that share a land border with the affected countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, and Mali, are considered to be most at risk.”It is vitally important that, countries – especially surrounding countries that don’t have Ebola cases as…
Follow @{0}A woman waits for customers at a Freetown marketFREETOWN, 18 September 2014 (IRIN) – As the World Bank predicts billions of dollars could be drained from Ebola-affected countries by the end of next year, IRIN spoke to Freetown residents to gauge how the crisis was affecting their lives. All sectors of the economy have been affected, with agriculture worst off, say analysts. Crops in eastern Sierra Leone’s agricultural zone remain un-harvested as Ebola-hit farmers stay away – either too sick, dead, in enforced quarantine, or unable to get labour to do the job. Ebola hit Sierra Leone at the…
Follow @{0}New arrivals at the Minawao campMAROUA (CAMEROON), 17 September 2014 (IRIN) – Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram violence at home and seeking refuge in Cameroon border towns are still not safe. Since June over 1,500 Nigerian families have crossed into Cameroon where they are mainly sheltering with host families or in local mosques, churches and schools, but following renewed Boko Haram attacks, some of these schools have been destroyed and refugees have had to flee further into Cameroon’s interior. Local officials and UNHCR estimate 43,000 Nigerians have fled to Cameroon over the past year, including 26,753 refugees registered by UNHCR.…
Follow @{0}A team trained to bury Ebola victims at work in Liberia (file photo)MONROVIA, 12 September 2014 (IRIN) – As the Ebola death toll mounts in Liberia, burial teams are having to contend with physical risk and trauma as they take charge of safely burying the dead, often in the face of local anger. Ebola has killed 1,224 Liberians as of 6 September, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with 68 percent of those deaths in the past three weeks. Cases are expected to continue to spiral across the country – 14 out of 15 counties have reported cases…
Anti-Boko Haram vigilantes now patrol the streets of MaiduguriMAIDUGURI, 4 September 2014 (IRIN) – Thousands have died in the violence in Nigeria’s northeast between Boko Haram insurgents and the security forces, with no end in sight to the bloodletting. Bombings and shootings by the Salafist group have been countered by extra-judicial murder by the army and the police, documented by local and international human rights groups. After five years of insurrection, Boko Haram now holds towns in the state of Borno; last week leader Abubaker Shekau announced a self-declared caliphate. IRIN talked to a group of mothers and widows in Maiduguri, the…