The number of Ebola cases rise sharply in Sierra Leone

November 2014 – SIERRA LEONE – The number of new cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone has jumped dramatically, putting paid to any hopes that the infection rate is slowing. Official figures released by the minister of health and sanitation show there were 111 new cases registered on Sunday, the highest daily rate since the ministry started publishing figures in August. There were 45 new cases the day before, including 24 in the capital, Freetown. Laboratory results for patients in Freetown, which include the new British army-built Ebola hospital, showed 40 new cases on Sunday. There was also a spike in the number of cases in Port Loko, a district north of Freetown where there is still no treatment centre and where, until recently, corpses were left lying on verandahs, in hospitals and in houses for days before collection. The figures come days after warnings by the UN that Ebola cases in Sierra Leone are being underreported by up to 50%. It is thought that some patients are still not turning up to hospital over fears that they will be turned away because there are no beds or that they will die isolated from their families. Sierra Leone’s deadliest day was 5 October, when 121 deaths were recorded from Ebola. Daily statistics compiled by Sierra Leone’s Emergency Operations Centre for that day showed 81 new cases of the virus, fewer than those registered on Sunday.

With 596 confirmed cases and still no treatment centre, the rise in the number of cases in Port Loko will cause deep concern among medical aid agencies such as Médecins sans Frontières, International Medical Corps and the Red Cross, who have been pleading for more beds and resources since the beginning of August. The latest figures make Port Loko the third most affected of the 14 districts in the country. IMC is constructing an 100-bed treatment centre in Port Loko but it will not be open until the end of November, by which time the World Health Organization has warned there may be a need for more than 4,000 beds across the country, which has fewer than 500 at the moment. In the district of Koinadugu, where an infection chain started three weeks ago when a man carrying the virus returned to the remote chiefdom of Niene, the Red Cross on Monday said the number of dead had increased in recent days. Last week it reported that as many as 30 had died, but the number is now closer to 50, a spokesman in Freetown said. Koinadugu had prided itself on being the only district in Sierra Leone to have been Ebola-free after local chiefs imposed quarantine, barring farmers and traders travelling to neighboring districts or over the border to Guinea. –Guardian