Sierra Leone: "25 Sept 3 Dead 75 new cases. Last 5 days (Sun 21 to Thur 25) 251 new cases. World Bank doubles Ebola Aid to $ 400m (new $ 170m). New China Mobile Bio-Safety Level III Lab arrives to start work in 3 days (Awoko)"

Quarantine...

Ebola update from Sierra Leone: 
"Sierra Leone has ordered the quarantine "with immediate effect" of three districts and 12 tribal chiefdoms - affecting more than one million people - in the largest lockdown in West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak. President Ernest Bai Koroma, in a national televised address, announced that the northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali were to be closed off along with the southern district of Moyamba - effectively sealing off around 1.2 million people. With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than a third of the population, in five of the nation's 14 districts, now finds itself unable to move freely.  "The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulty but the lives of everyone and the survival of our country takes precedence over these difficulties," Mr Koroma said. "These are trying moments for everyone in the country." The deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected almost 6,000 people in West Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organisation's latest figures. The virus can fell its victims within days, causing rampant fever, severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and – in many cases – unstoppable internal and external bleeding."

The Real Cost of Ebola

Wow.. a truly moving and astute take on the real toll of Ebola. "imagine: You are a parent whose child has suddenly come ill with a fever. Do you cast your child away and refuse to touch him? Do you cover your face and your arms? Stay back! Unclean! Or do you comfort your child when he asks for you, arms outstretched, to make the pain go away?"

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/09/why_ebola_is_terrifying_and_dangerous_it_preys_on_family_caregiving_and.html

A final walk...

What happens to this women? She's suspected to have Ebola... probably dead within a few days. If she had decent food, fluids, and medical attention she might make, maybe. But without that she's simply paraded through the city by some protected head to toe for people to take pictures of.... how long we will allow this to go on?

Donate?

I just got another message from my partner in sierra leone. They need help desperatly. "the situation in Sierra Leone is becoming worse even though government is trying there best to contain the Ebola Virus yet a lot of problems still stands, many are hungry with no food and water and peoples movement restricted, no market activities and food government cant provide we're seeking donations to help people with food and water, people especially the physically challenge (polio persons, blind, leprosy patient) and street children please help us provide food for people." We can help them. If anyone can help with even 5, 10, 20 dollars we can get some food for people. You can donate a couple dollars at www.walkinglion.org and click on the donate button on the right hand side. Im going to send whatever we can get straight to them hopefully tomorrow, but its easier/better to send one large sum as it costs for each transfer... please help. And please "like" this and write comments so more people will see it... 

Check out today's ny times article as well:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/world/africa/ebola-outbreak.html?referrer=

Ebola in Makeni

As most of you know, I was in Sierra Leone a couple years ago and helped set up a community based organization. We continue to try to bring change to the region we work in, but everything has been put on hold right now due to the ebola outbreak. I wanted to share a first hand account of how dire the situation is there from my partner there:

"The situation in Sierra Leone is getting worse every day. Worse is that the outbreak in most Cities in Sierra Leone is very much high that it has taken government concentration and those rural communities are getting extremely vulnerable. on Saturday the Magbenteh Community Hospital, I believe we visited there when you came to Sierra Leone (the hospital built with the Hydroform bricks) was quarantined after a suspected case of Ebola, 6 nurses and 21 patient where suspected and all 6 nurses positive, 11 patient positive after the test result was out. on Monday yesterday three nurses already dead and two patient dead.

I am calling on your urgent intervention to complement government effort in the fight against Ebola. The virus is almost all in the District in Sierra Leone now except Koinadugu District. The other truth is that the disease have spread so wide that government cannot handle it now and some reports on Ebola are not made known to government because people do not want their relatives to be buried like poppers in plastics.

Two Hospital facilities in Makeni have already been closed because of the intense outbreak there. All our lives are at risk, traveling have been restricted, high inflation of food commodities, and most homes go with only one meal a day, imagine a country whose majority population goes with less than $1UD a day. everything is horrible here."

Heartbreaking......