Ebola virus has taken many villages and towns in Liberia and Sierra leone that bodies of the diseased are now left on the streets for dogs to eat and others rotten all over with no one ready to touch nor give these bodies proper funeral rites whatsoever.
Every day we have to turn sick people away because we are too full”, said Stefan Liljegren, the MSF coordinator at ELWA 3. “I have had to tell ambulance drivers to call me before they arrive with patients, no matter how unwell they are, since we are often unable to admit them.”
MSF’s care centers in Liberia and Sierra Leone are overcrowded with suspected Ebola patients. People continue to become ill and are dying in their villages and communities. In Sierra Leone, highly infectious bodies are rotting in the streets.
A multiplication of high quality isolation facilities would allow for earlier referral and admission, leading to a significant impact on mortality. MSF teams have been able to save more lives when people infected with Ebola seek treatment as early as possible. Increased isolation capacity will also relieve the affected countries’ health systems, some of which are on the verge of collapse. At least 150 health workers have died from Ebola; others are too afraid to go back to work.
Additionally, triage centers must to be set up, systems for management of corpses must be increased, and hygiene items must be distributed at a mass scale, along with an increase of active surveillance capacities. Disinfection campaigns are needed, as well as health and hygiene promotion among the populations and within health facilities.
“The clock is ticking and Ebola is winning,” said Dr. Liu. “The time for meetings and planning is over. It is now time to act. Every day of inaction means more deaths and the slow collapse of societies.
This is really terrible
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