The BBC has reported that four people have died of Ebola in Sierra Leone, the first confirmed cases in the country following an outbreak in Guinea.
They died in the eastern Kailahun district, which borders southern Guinea where the outbreak started in March. Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever with a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent, is believed to have killed some 185 people in Guinea and Liberia since March in the first deadly appearance of the disease in West Africa.
The UN World Health Organization said it has been informed about the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and would help deploy essential supplies.
A nurse of the 'Doctors without Borders' medical aid organisation examines a patient in the in-take area at a centre for victims of the Ebola virus on 1st April, 2014 in Guekedou, a town in Guinea near to the border with Sierra Leone.
Esther Sterk, a tropical medicine adviser for Doctors without Borders, has been on the ground during past Ebola outbreaks in Africa and, from her base in Geneva, is helping coordinate efforts to quash this one.
She said "we know from other outbreaks that epidemics can be stopped. And the principle is always the same: isolating suspected patients to prevent them from giving the disease to people around them. Ebola is transmitted by close contact with infected people. It's spread via body fluids, like the blood and the urine and the saliva, the stools — all body fluids are contagious.
Ebola is not airborne, so not contagious like, for example, the flu. Now we know more or less which families are infected, so we are following them. The expectation is that if the people in the community are better informed about the disease, we can detect all possible cases of Ebola and quarantine them.
We will manage to contain this outbreak in a short amount of time, but it's difficult to say when this will be at the moment."
Mr. Benjamin Sensasi of WHO giving on overview of Ebola Virus Disease to health workers in Sierra Leone.
250 health professionals had been trained in case the outbreak in Guinea spread to the county. According to several participants, issues likely to pose major challenges in Ebola response in their areas of work include hunting and eating of bush meat, caring for the sick and burying the dead. This is because African funerals rituals involve touching the dead person. Bush meat, monkeys, but especially fruit bats, are considered to be the natural hosts of the virus.
Locals are advised to avoid contact with Ebola patients and their bodily fluids. Do not touch anything - such as shared towels - which could have become contaminated in a public place.
Carers should wear gloves and protective equipment, such as masks, and wash their hands regularly.
The WHO also warns against consuming raw bushmeat and any contact with infected bats or monkeys and apes. Fruit bats in particular are considered a delicacy in the area of Guinea where the outbreak started.
The British Foreign Office have noted that the ebola virus has been confirmed in Sierra Leone, near the border with Guinea. They advise that if you travel to this region you should follow the health advice issued by the National Travel Health Network and Centre, maintain strict standards of hygiene and avoid eating bushmeat.
