Lebanese community donates cleaning supplies

The Lebanese community, on Friday 23 June 2017, donated supplies to Operation Clean Freetown.
Handling over of cleaning equipment and food worth Le50 million at the YSC Complex at Wilkinson Road, Alie Colisee, Treasurer, Lebanese Community, said, “The donation is an effort by the community to improve on waste management in Freetown.”
“We are aware that the work is being done by community volunteers and we therefore sought the need that providing wheelbarrows, shovels, lake, head-pans will not be enough and we therefore consider in providing food for the volunteers.” Colisee added.
“If Sierra Leone is to be clean, health and safe, it has to be done by us and the community is in support of such drive.” Colisee stated.
The President’s Recovery Priorities representative, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer, said, “The objective of the initiative in reducing the risk of epidemics by improving solid waste management in the city.”
“We are targeting a Ward per day within the urban area,” Aki-Sawyer said. The intensive cleaning exercise will also target households to subscribe to the compulsory regular paid waste collection from youth groups within the community to ensure effective cleaning at all times.
Aki-Sawyer further commented the enforcement of bye-laws to achieve the objective of the initiative and encouraged Sierra Leoneans to keep their communities clean.

UNFPA supports midwives and helps mend health system

When World Health Organization (WHO) declared Sierra Leone Ebola-free over a year ago the country had already suffered over 3,900 deaths. Ebola killed over 200 health workers in Sierra Leone, including 56 midwives.
Fear and stigma plagued the healthcare system, especially reproductive health care. This left thousands of women and girls without maternal health and family planning services.
UNFPA and the Government of Sierra Leone are working to restore access to reproductive healthcare. “Before Ebola, we had limited midwives,” said Margaret Mannah-Macarthy, a UNFPA midwifery expert, “and now we have even fewer.” UNFPA is now supporting midwifery schools in Freetown and Makeni, which are expected to graduate 80 to 90 students, every year.Midwives from these schools will be able to provide a full range of services for pregnant women, from antenatal care and safe deliveries to postnatal care. They will also be trained to provide reproductive health services to the broader community, including neonatal care, family planning counseling, and diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.
Some midwives are also eager to do community outreach. “I want to help communities to be less fearful about coming to the hospital,” said Jeneba Sia Bundo, a 29-year old midwifery student.At the National Midwifery School, one of the UNFPA-supported institutions, training will now exceed the rigorousness of the previous curriculum.“The Ebola virus highlighted some serious gaps and deficiencies in the curriculum that we teach the midwives,” Dr. Joan Shepherd, the school’s principal, told UNFPA

When will Sierra Leone be able to feed itself?

When will Sierra Leone start feeding itself, is the question many in the country have been asking for decades, and successive governments have failed to provide the answer. Over 80% of basic foods consumed in Sierra Leone ae imported from abroad, costing hundreds of millions of dollars every year. And the cost keeps rising.

According to a recent World Food Programme report, majority of people in Sierra Leone are at a very high risk of starvation and malnutrition. This worrying report comes after ten years of president Koroma’s promise to ensure that no one goes to bed hungry.

The previous SLPP government was heavily criticised for failing to achieve its manifesto pledge on national food security. Today, the ruling APC government of president Koroma has proved to be no better.

source- Seirra Leone Telegraph 

Death Sentence For Stray Dogs Over Rabies

The authorities in Pujehun District have ordered the killing of all stray dogs found roaming the streets. The order is in response to a dog bite incident that apparently killed a 7-year old girl.

Health officials are investigating the cause of her death, but already suspicion has fallen heavily on a possible rabies infection.

The incident in the Gbondapi community has sparked widespread concern because it followed reports of the hospitalisation of another victim of a dog bite in the same community.

A team from the district health management team, World Health Organisation and other stakeholders have been dispatched to the community to investigate the incident, according to Dr David Bome, the District Medical Officer in Pujehun. He said they were there to investigate how many people were actually affected and to collect specimen for investigations to ascertain the cause of death of the young girl.

An official of the Pujehun District Council said the order to kill was part of efforts to cleanse the district of dogs wandering the street with the potential to infect people with rabies. Councilor Anthony Fortune, chairman of the Health Committee at the Pujehun District Council, said residents would also henceforth be required to license their pet dogs so that proper record of the canine animal could be kept, and that in case there was such incident they could trace the owner.

Fortune told Politico that they had ordered youths in the entire district to kill any dog found on the streets. Six dogs, including the one suspected to have bitten the deceased girl, have already been killed in the Gbondapi community.
Gbondapi, located some 12 miles to the district headquarter town of Pujehun, is one of the oldest trade fair communities in Sierra Leone. Business people go there from as far as across the border with Liberia. This weekly trading, called ‘Lomaa’, takes place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Traders and market goers often bring along their dogs to the trade fair and the animals find appealing food stuff like rotten fish. Because of this many of the dogs make Gbondapi their home, living off on the discarded food stuff.

Rabies is a preventable but incurable viral disease that affects mammals. It is most often transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal, like dogs. The virus infects the central nervous system and ultimately causes disease in the brain.

The symptoms include fever, headache, and general weakness or discomfort.

Sierra Leone is thought to have one of the highest concentrations of stray dogs in Africa and about 500 people die of rabies every year. There is an ongoing campaign to vaccinate all dogs as part of efforts to end rabies by the year 2030.

Officials in Pujehun say rabies cases are rarely reported.

Bome say this is the first time since he was deployed to the district in 2014 that they have recorded a rabies case.

Human beings can also be vaccinated against rabies, but Bome said the vaccines available in the whole district are only enough for no more than five people.

The DMO dismissed reports about the hospitalisation of a child under five years of age for a dog bite. But a source confirmed to Politico that a boy within that age had indeed been admitted at the Pujehun Maternity Hospital for a dog bit.

The district management team said it’s embarking on a sanitisation through outreach programmes and radio discussions on the issue of handling of dogs and other pets. One other measure being considered, according to Mr Fortune, is the introduction of by-laws which will enforce the requirement to license pet animals.

By Mohamed T Massaquoi

Moroccan Company Wins Contract to Operate Urban Busses in Conakry

Moroccan bus operator, City Bus, will be in charge of urban bus transportation in the Guinean capital Conakry, under an agreement between the Guinean Transport Ministry and the company.

City Bus will also ensure bus links to the outskirts of the city as well as inter-urban transport, the Guinean transport ministry said in a statement, but did not specify the duration of the contract.

In a comment on this recent breakthrough of City Bus in Africa, Moroccan news website 360.ma noted that such a contract is fraught with risks, explaining that in 2012 French transport company RATP had to withdrew on the backdrop of governance issues.

The website also points out to the challenges facing City Bus in Conakry notably with regards to managing urban transport with an old bus fleet.

Conakry authorities are pinning hope on receiving 50 urban busses from Turkey, whose President Erdogan promised to donate during his visit to the country last March.