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SITUATION REPORT | Issue 32 | 5-11 July 2015

IOM Sierra Leone Ebola Response

SITUATION OVERVIEW

A total of 9 confirmed cases were reported from Kambia, Port Loko, and Western Area Urban in the week to 5 July.

Four chiefdoms—Bramaia, Magbema, Samu and Tonko Limba—in the district of Kambia each reported a single confirmed case of EVD. All 4 cases were either registered contacts of a previous case or have an established epidemiological link to one.

Two cases were reported from two chiefdoms in Port Loko. The first, from Maforki chiefdom, was a registered contact of a previous case. The second, reported from the chiefdom of Masimera, arose from an unknown source of infection and was identified after post-mortem testing of a community death.

Three cases were reported from the Magazine Wharf area of the capi-tal, Freetown. All three cases are registered contacts associated with previous cases in the cluster.

All but one of the 9 cases reported from Sierra Leone in the week to 5 July were either registered contacts of a previous case (5) or have an established epidemiological link to one (3). However, 3 cases were only identified as a result of post-mortem testing of community deaths. On 5 July, a total of 1521 contacts were being monitored in 3 districts: Kambia, Port Loko, and Western Area Urban.

There was one health worker infection reported from Kambia in the week to 5 July.

A high level delegation from IOM HQ, Regional Office Dakar and US CDC is visiting Sierra Leone from 10-14 July as part of a West Africa assessment tour of IOM’s Health and Humanitarian Border Management programming. Delegates have assessed health screening and flow monitoring operations in Kambia and Freetown with colleagues from WHO and identified areas for future collaboration.

IOM’s Magazine Wharf outbreak response is entering week 3.

As of 13 July, IOM clinicians will begin Infection Prevention and Control training targeting hospitals support to King’s College of London training staff at Connaught Hospital. In the following weeks similar support will be extended to Princess Christian’s Maternity and Ola During Children’s Hospitals.

During the coming week, the final community based trainings in Kambia on emergency interim care kits will be completed and a partners meeting held with ACF, ABC Development and the District Health Management Teams to discuss priorities moving forward.

© IOM 2015

Weekly Highlights

© IOM 2015

IOM’s Health and Humanitarian Border Management monitoring team at the Mange Flow Monitoring Point in Port Loko near the

Kambia border collecting data from travelers. Headcounts along with place of origin/destination and a number of health/Ebola re-

lated questions are posed and later compiled within a central database. Statistics generated by the data will be an invaluable source

of information for disease surveillance and contact tracing in Sierra Leone.

IOM Sierra Leone Ebola Response Situation Report | Issue 32 | 5-11 July 2015

PAGE 2

From 7-20 July 2015 staff members from IOM’s Migration Health Division in Geneva, the IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa in Dakar, US CDC and WHO will travel to Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Dakar and Geneva as a delega-tion to identify strengths, weak-nesses, opportunities, and threats to successful implemen-tation of comprehensive cross border, mobility pattern map-ping and health programmes in the region. On Friday 10 July IOM Guinea delivered the delegates to the IOM Sierra Leone country team on the Kambia/Forecariah bor-der. After reviewing health screening protocols on both sides of the border the delega-tion met up with WHO staff at the District Ebola Response Cen-ter for a briefing with the District Coordinator, Dr Alfred Kamara, WHO, DfID and CDC. On Saturday, 11 July a morning briefing was held at the IOM sub-office in Kambia before linking up with the WHO field team to review Category B village cross-ing points (semi-permanent staff presence, no permanent infrastructure) at Kalangba,

Katinke and Walinbana. Briefings were held with locally deployed RSLAF units as well as IOM roving monitors. The dele-gates expressed satisfaction with the IOM teams, their deployments and the general high level of oper-ational capacity after roughly one month since commencement of HHBM activities in Kambia. On the road to Freetown the delegation stopped at Mange and reviewed the Flow Monitoring Point (FMP). The FMP system which is being set up in Kambia, Bombali, Port Loko and Freetown will collect head count data, port of origin/destination, gender and other key quantifiers which will feed into a central database and provide valu-able information to ongoing sur-veillance and contact tracing efforts in the fight to get to zero new Ebola infections. On 12 July, delegates visited FMP and health screening operations in Suzan’s Bay, Freetown. Delegates remarked on the advanced level of data collection. A final debrief on the Sierra Leone leg of the mission will be held on Monday with all participants to develop concrete recommenda-

tions for inclusion in the final action plan.

IOM-CDC high profile delegation joined by WHO on Kambia and Freetown border inspections

Joseph approaches on a motorbike with a glint in his eye and an all-knowing smile on his face. A father of 6, he is a fluent repository of Sierra Leone’s history and a firm believ-er in life-long learning. As a teacher and guidance counselor at a Catholic girl’s secondary school in Kono district during the 1980’s some of his first students were destitute Na-mibian’s fleeing conflict. He did his utmost to unsure even the neediest students had the opportunity to learn. After the conflict ended Jo-seph became aware of IOM for the first time when some of his students were repatri-ated home. Joseph himself became a victim of conflict during the 90’s when his country was rocked by a vicious civil war. But no matter what, “living right, and sharing the excess to the benefit of everyone” is a mantra Joseph has tried to

follow throughout his 55 years. Building on a long career as a teacher, government official with the Ministry of Mines and a senior police officer, in late June, Joseph joined IOM’s Health and Humanitarian Border Management project in

Kambia as a senior monitor lead-ing a team of 6 roving motorbike monitors around remote areas in the district. At times an arduous task, especially during the rainy season, Joseph is unfazed. “For me joining IOM was in the realm of doing something I like after 7 years spent working at the Lungi Air-port.” When asked about IOM’s mission

Joseph doesn’t hesitate, “IOM

wants to correct uncertainty so

that vulnerable people can belong

to a world where they are certain

of living a normal life despite all

the hazards that surround us. IOM

is working conscientiously so the whole world sees tangible

results.”

IOM Kambia HHBM Senior Monitor, Joseph Sembu

-Kabia in Katinke village on 11 July 2015.

© IOM 2015

Staff Profile: HHBM’s Joseph Sembu-Kabia ‘Delivering tangible results’

© IOM 2015

The IOM and US CDC delegates with the

WHO field team outside of the Kambia DERC

on 11 July 2015.

IOM delegates answer questions to Kambia

HHBM Flow Monitoring Point staff at the

Mange checkpoint in Port Loko.

IOM Sierra Leone Ebola Response Situation Report | Issue 32 | 5-11 July 2015

PAGE 3

IOM’s Magazine Wharf response enters week 3

Entering the week of 13 July, IOM will continue its pres-ence in Magazine Wharf with 8 staff members that will provide ongoing mentoring to local health care workers on the health screening process in 8 Peripheral Health Units. Although the initial commitment was double, as regular projects resume and scale up a smaller team will remain in place. Rapid assessment tools including an inventory checklist continues to be filled out daily and the results of the paper based forms are being compiled into a database to track regular supply requests from the Central Medical Store and other suppliers of medical equipment. A series of meetings will be held in the coming week to determine the length of the Magazine Wharf intervention and longer term commitment of resources should Freetown be added into Operation Northern Push in a concerted bid to end Ebola. Teams are pre-sent in facilities during opening hours from 0830-1400 daily. After closing IOM staff to-gether with Concern Worldwide and other Ebola Response Con-sortium partners meet up with Community Health Workers, local religious and tradition-al leaders and other local stakeholders to discuss needs in the community; conduct aware raising; educate on health screening and early reporting of symptoms and other

health promotion messaging.

IPC/WASH needs assessment to be presented to

MOHS

After compilation of the final draft report over the week-end in partnership with the International Medical Corps and the Christian Health Association of Sierra Leone (CHASL) and with support from the United Kingdom De-partment for International Development, IOM, IMC and CHASL will present the findings of the 14 district survey of IPC and WASH in 30 CHASL facilities to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation on Wednesday. The report will help to determine support to private medical centers within the parameters of the Gov-ernment’s 6-9 month recovery plan’s health sector priori-ties.

Cumulative Training Academy/Mobile Training operational data for 01 December 2014– 11 July 2015 (weekly numbers in brackets)

Course Name Number of courses run

Total number of National students

Total number of International Students

Cumulative Total

3 day Ebola clinician IPC 2 day Simulated Patient care

23

589

355

944

1 day Ebola clinical IPC 2 day Simulated patient care

4 26 59 85

1 day clinical augmentation

2 25 41 66

3 day basic IPC/PPE/3 day WHO Ebola basic IPC

66 5,850 51 5,901

Mobile Training 3 day IPC/PPE/Clinical Decontamination/2 day modified IPC

32 1,150 0 1,150

1 day clinical pilot/RING IPC

2 65 33 98

Total 128 (1) 7,705 (27) 539 8,244

© IOM 2015

Magazine Wharf from Suzan’s Bay on 12 July 2015.

IOM Sierra Leone Ebola Response Situation Report | Issue 32 | 5-11 July 2015

PAGE 4

For more information on IOM’s Sierra Leone activities please contact:

IOM Sierra Leone Response | jbaker@iom.int | Public Information/Project Development | nbishop@iom.int

Please find IOM Sierra Leone on Facebook at www.facebook.com/iomsierraleone &

www.iom.int/countries/sierra-leone/

IOM Sierra Leone’s initiatives are supported by:

Social mobilization and community engagement are widely

heralded by UNICEF and others as the seminal activities

that will finally bring the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone to

an end. IOM has been employing 32 social mobilizers from

8 low income coastal communities in the Freetown area as

champions of the cause, spreading the latest social mes-

saging on hygiene promotion, Ebola sensitization, early

reporting of symptoms and awareness in times of out-

breaks within their own communities. The social mobilizers

are also trained on the use of emergency care kits, and

how to recognize, manage and refer individuals who show

signs of illness. Over the past 3 weeks densely crowded

Magazine Wharf (shown below) has been home to 9 con-

firmed cases. The regular complement of 4 IOM social mo-

bilizers has been raised to 12 in response; shared out

amongst joint inter-agency teams involving the Red Cross,

SMAC and UNICEF. IOM’s Fatamata Sesay has worked in

the area for the past 8 months and says there are a lot of

challenges in conveying messages to community members

even at this late stage. “Some people simply refuse to co-

operate.” But Fatamata is an eternal optimist and refuses

to give up, making daily house to house visits with poten-

tially life saving messages and an ever present smile.

Major News Headlines (click links for story):

Donors pledge $3.4 billion for Ebola recovery plan, Wall Street Journal, 11 July

Two more Liberia Ebola cases as Guinea, Sierra Leone log 27, CIDRAP, 8 July

Sierra Leone extends Ebola curfews indefinitely, AP, 8 July

African countries respond to report on WHO Ebola response, RFI, 8 July

Ebola cases evade detection due to ongoing lack of trust in communities, UN News Center, 8 July

Initial Ebola test on Liberia dog carcass negative, Reuters, 8 July

Sea Fever: Port Loko’s Unisa Kamara on fishing during Ebola, Ebola Deeply, 6 July

Port Loko: “People are still dying from Ebola. We need to take drastic measures”, Ebola Deeply, 10 July

IOM’s community social mobilizers continue heroic work in Magazine Wharf

IOM social mobilizer and local resident Fatamata Sesay in Suzan’s Bay, Freetown

on 12 July 2015. Abject living conditions (right) and community resistance make

social mobilization activities an ongoing challenge in the hotspot area.

© IOM 2015