Sierra Leone

Health sector response mounted, including preparations for targeted vaccine campaign

FREETOWN, June 14 2018 - The Ministry of Health and Sanitation today declared a measles outbreak in Falaba district in the remote northern part of Sierra Leone. There have been a total of 19 confirmed cases this week in the Chiefdoms of Sulima (14 cases) and Mongo (5 cases), close to the border with Guinea.

A measles outbreak is defined as three or more laboratory confirmed cases in a community or district in one month.

The quarterly Sierra Leone Market Price Bulletin provides updates on price changes for staple food commodities in Sierra Leone. This information can be used to guide programme and policy decisions by development actors. It can also assist smallholder farmers to plan agricultural and marketing activities.

FREETOWN, June 13 2018 - Sierra Leone has become the latest country to join the Global Quality of Care Network, which aims to ensure that every pregnant woman, newborn and child can receive quality healthcare, and to halve maternal and newborn deaths in targeted health facilities within five years.

Sierra Leone continues to experience high rates of child and maternal deaths, and strengthening quality alongside access to healthcare at all stages of the lifecycle, including adolescence, pregnancy, deliveries and the early childhood years, will be critical for saving lives.

Bashiru Brima, 21, is not your regular tailor. Living in the slum community of Cockle Bay, in Sierra Leone's capital city, he has been fashioning bags, mats and hats out of plastic refuse, while educating his fellow villagers to reclaim waste rather than let it pile up.

Ebola Response Anthropology Platform

Key points

1. Caring is human, and intensely practical. Yet scientific discussions concerning the current Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic frequently portray caring practices, including burial, as irrational or immutable traditions.

(MissionNewswire) On Sunday May 27, a devastating fire at a Don Bosco Fambul house in Freetown, Sierra Leone was caused by an electrical short-circuit. Everything in the Girls Shelter was lost in the fire and one of the 34 girls was slightly injured, with burns on her feet. The Salesian organization is one of Sierra Leone’s leading child-welfare organizations. The house affected is part of the organization’s Girls Shelter, which provides education and other services to girls and young women who have been victims of sexual assault and other abuses.

In Numbers

24.2 mt of food assistance distributed
US$ 0 cash based transfers made
US$ 7,914,883 six months (May-Oct 2018) net funding requirements, representing 64% of total
2,229 people assisted in April 2018

Operational Updates

The United States Agency for International Development / Food for Peace (USAID / FFP) supported Cash Transfer Programming (CTP) response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia greatly contributed to the recovery of affected communities and households. The CTP response provided a safety net to assist targeted communities to deal with transient food insecurity and went beyond achieving this objective by also contributing to the recovery of livelihoods eroded by the Ebola crisis.

Freetown – IOM, the UN Migration Agency in Sierra Leone, together with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), last week presided over the graduation ceremony of the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) course designed by the Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN) and funded by USAID.

Summary

A huge overhaul of Sierra Leone's education system is underway. Broken by the decade-long civil war and then battered by the effects of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, it has been slowly recovering.

Now a raft of reforms have been brought in by new President Julius Maada Bio. A promise of free primary and secondary schooling for all was part of the campaign that helped him sweep to victory last month. Now he has announced that will start in September.

He also revealed that education's share of the annual spending budget will be almost doubled from 11% to 20%.

Sierra Leone introduced the ban in 2015 after a rise in rape, abuse and poverty during the deadly Ebola outbreak.

By Nellie Peyton

DAKAR, May 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A West African court is to examine a ban on pregnant girls going to school in Sierra Leone in a landmark case that campaigners say could strengthen girls' rights across the region.

Sierra Leone introduced the ban in 2015 after a rise in rape, abuse and poverty during the deadly Ebola outbreak fuelled a spike in teenage pregnancies.

"Who would live in an area that is disaster prone if they knew and valued their life? We had no idea, we have no choice"

By Nicky Milne

FREETOWN, May 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kadiatu Koroma only narrowly escaped the mudslide that engulfed her home in Sierra Leone's ramshackle capital last August, killing an estimated 1,000 people in one of the worst flooding-related disasters to hit Africa in living memory.

FREETOWN, April 29, 2018 --- This year’s African Vaccination Week, on the theme ‘Vaccines Work! Do Your Part!’ has been celebrated across Sierra Leone, including a major event to engage community and religious leaders, mothers and civil society organizations at the Satellite Hospital in Freetown. The event was coordinated by the Pikin to Pikin Movement and the Children’s Advocacy Forum with support from the NGO Focus 1000 and Niyel.

In Numbers

141.59 mt of food assistance distributed
US$ 31,500 cash-based transfers made
US$ 7,914,883 six months (April-Sept 2018) net funding requirements, representing 64% of total

4,907 people assisted in March 2018

Operational Updates

Household items distribution:

In February, PWJ and our local partner CEDA distributed household goods to those families heavily affected by the flood/landslide that occurred in August 2018.

Summary of major revisions made to emergency plan of action:

(MissionNewswire) Salesian missionaries with Don Bosco Fambul, one of Sierra Leone’s leading child-welfare organizations in Freetown, immediately responded with relief efforts for those affected by flooding and mudslides that occurred on Aug. 14, 2017. Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, lies between the mountains and the sea. The intense rain caused a mudslide on Mount Sugar Loaf in the Regent District on the outskirts of Freetown. The mudslide occurred at 6 a.m. when most of the community residents were still sleeping—leaving them more vulnerable to the rising waters.

In Numbers

12.054 mt of food assistance distributed

USD 174,071 cash based transfers made

USD 7,914,883 six months (March-Aug 2018) net funding requirements, representing 64% of total

8,580 people assisted in FEBRUARY 2018

Operational Updates