Sierra Leone Flare-Up - Ebola by Sea
(Source)
Nearly Halted in Sierra Leone, Ebola Makes Comeback by Sea
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — It seemed as if the Ebola crisis was abating.
New cases were plummeting. The president lifted travel restrictions, and schools were to reopen. A local politician announced on the radio that two 21-day incubation cycles had passed with no new infections in his Freetown neighborhood. The country, many health officials said, was “on the road to zero.”
Then Ebola washed in from the sea.
Sick fishermen came ashore in early February to the packed wharf-side slums that surround the country’s fanciest hotels, which were filled with public health workers.
Volunteers fanned out to contain the outbreak, but the virus jumped quarantine lines and cascaded into the countryside, bringing dozens of new infections and deaths.
When the cluster erupted at the wharf area — part of a large neighborhood known as Aberdeen, with about 9,000 residents — some Ebola prevention workers were taken by surprise because they had been continuing surveillance efforts. Officials imposed a quarantine, prompting many fishermen to take to the sea to avoid it. The authorities sent out word for them to return.Two wooden boats carrying three sick fishermen arrived at a small wharf in Freetown in early February, cutting short a two-week trip. “The captain was vomiting,” said Mohamed Bangura, 23, a crew member of one boat.
The wharf, Tamba Kula, is an informal settlement where hundreds of people live in shanties made of reclaimed wood and corrugated metal roofs. At the slum’s entrance, a towering sign displays an image of the Statue of Liberty, an advertisement for daily British Airways flights with connections to the United States that were canceled when the Ebola outbreak was declared.
Now, commerce in Tamba Kula is also restricted. Those who contracted Ebola there and nearby — two dozen people since early February — include fishermen, boat cleaners and two women who sold fish.
On a recent afternoon, James Bangura, an official leading the Ebola response in the capital, chastised the deputy harbor master of Tamba Kula for failing to keep arriving fisherman on their boats to be evaluated.
“Once they’re lost and nobody accounts for them, we can’t get to zero,” Mr. Bangura told the man.
“They scatter,” the deputy harbor master responded, but he checked the men from the next boat that arrived.
As cases mounted, Dr. Conteh, the district’s Ebola response coordinator, summoned about 125 traditional healers, tribal chiefs and other local leaders. He called for a suspension of traditional practices and warned that criminal summonses were being issued to anyone accused of hiding the sick. Experts fear that such threats will lead more people to go underground.
“The war is still on,” Dr. Conteh told colleagues the next day. “We’re at a critical stage. We can either make or break.”