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Sierra Leone to Impose 3-Day Ebola Quarantine Sierra Leone to Impose 3-Day Ebola Quarantine
(about 3 hours later)
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The authorities in Sierra Leone are ordering people to stay inside their homes for three days later this month as part of an effort to stop the spread of the Ebola virus, a government spokesman said Saturday. DAKAR, Senegal — With West African governments increasingly desperate to contain an ever-quickening Ebola epidemic, Sierra Leone has decreed a stringent new measure confining residents to their homes later this month.
The government is telling people to stay inside their homes on Sept. 19, 20 and 21, said the spokesman, Abdulai Bayraytay. The dates were chosen to give people enough time to stock up on food and other provisions before the ban on movement goes into effect, he said. An official in the president’s office had said the lockdown would last for four days. For three days, from Sept. 19 to Sept. 21, “everybody is expected to stay indoors” as 7,000 teams of health and community workers go door-to-door to root out hidden Ebola patients, a government spokesman, Abdulai Bayraytay, said Saturday from the capital, Freetown. The military and police will enforce the measure, Mr. Bayraytay added.
Already though, some are questioning whether the measure will help. Doctors Without Borders, which has been helping to fight the outbreak of the virus across West Africa, says it “will be extremely difficult for health workers to accurately identify cases through door-to-door screening.” “It’s clear that we have pockets of resistance, in terms of denial,” he said. “People are still harboring loved ones at home.”
Even if cases are identified during the lockdown, the group said, Sierra Leone does not have enough beds for the patients. “Sometimes neighbors are calling us” with information about Ebola patients, he added. “That gave us the clear indication that people are still harboring patients.”
“Without a place to take suspected cases — to screen and treat them — the approach cannot work,” the group said Saturday. “It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers. This leads to the concealment of potential cases and ends up spreading the disease further.” International health organizations have generally been opposed to such coercive measures in fighting the epidemic, arguing that they add a punitive element, increase hardships to communities hit by the virus and diminish needed trust and cooperation.
Ebola has killed more than 2,000 people across West Africa, including more than 400 in Sierra Leone. On Saturday, a representative of one agency voiced similar reservations about Sierra Leone’s new policy, expressing doubts that it would be effective. He suggested that the government’s initial plan — to educate communities that may be harboring patients about the risks of such behavior — had mutated into something harsher. He asked not to be quoted by name because of the delicacy of the matter.
The group Doctors Without Borders, which has been working in the region, warned that the lockdown could make matters worse. “It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers,” it said Saturday, according to news agency reports.
The World Health Organization said Friday that the Ebola death toll in West Africa had topped 2,000 — the total number of confirmed, probable and suspected deaths is now 2,097 — with no sign that is abating. Of the three countries most affected, Sierra Leone has the third highest number of deaths, at 491.
“In the last two weeks, the incidence in Sierra Leone has remained very high, with more than 150 cases reported each week,” the health organization said on Friday. Cases continue to increase even in Freetown, where Ebola had so far been less virulent than elsewhere.
As aid agencies plead for more hands-on help in the field, Mr. Bayraytay said Saturday that incentive payments of $150 per week would be given to burial workers and nurses fighting the epidemic, thanks to donations from the World Bank, the United Nations and others.