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Sierra Leone launches 'zero Ebola infection' campaign

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IANS Freetown

Sierra Leone on Friday started a three-day "seat at home" campaign as part of its final push for "zero Ebola infection".

For the next three day, six million Sierra Leoneans will stay at home to listen to the health messages from health personnel throughout the country, Xinhua news agency reported.

The major objective of the campaign, among others, is to re-energise the population in the fight against the Ebola virus, informing communities about behaviours that continue to increase transmission rate and isolate sick people as well as making the communities own the drive.

Although the campaign is nationwide, the head of the National Ebola Response Centre said the emphasis would be on the Western Area province, and Port Loko, Kambia and Bombali districts that are all in the Northern province. These areas have been recording most of the confirmed new cases for the past three weeks.

 

About 25,650 personnel will be engaged during these three days to carry out the exercise and will be split into a teams of three each, comprising a health worker, one social mobiliser together with a member of the community.

These people, according to an official, will be moving around every household to bring out sick people and to treatment centres for those who manifest Ebola symptoms, while the others will be taken to hospitals.

He told the media that the country had 33 new cases of Ebola last week, "the best weekly figures since last summer", but cautioned against "complacency".

He advised people that "until we are all at zero, none of us is at zero".

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First Published: Mar 27 2015 | 8:18 PM IST

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