A member of EMERGENCY's international staff has contracted the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone. The patient is a Ugandan paediatrician who works at EMERGENCY's Centre for treatment of Ebola patients in Lakka, in the area around the capital Freetown.
He has begun the treatment at the Lakka Centre and his overall conditions are stable. He has been transferred today to Germany to continue the treatment.
"To avoid the spreading of the virus and contamination, all personnel employed at the Centre have received specific training on the protection protocols, use of personal protection equipment and correct movement along the set paths within the Centre," says Luca Rolla, EMERGENCY's coordinator in Sierra Leone. "However, no medical action can be considered entirely without risk during an epidemic of this kind."
In Sierra Leone over 110 health workers have caught Ebola. The epidemic is quickly spreading throughout the country, but especially all around the capital: World Health Organisation data say that there are over 1,800 people infected by Ebola, with an increase of 30 new cases every day, but no one knows the true extent of the epidemic.
EMERGENCY will not issue any further statements for the time being, to safeguard the privacy of the patient and of his family.
EMERGENCY has been working in Sierra Leone since 2001 in the Surgical and Paediatric Centre in Goderich which, for the past two months, has been the only hospital open and operating in the Freetown area.
Recently, on 18 September, EMERGENCY opened a Centre in Lakka with 22 beds to isolate and treat patients suffering from Ebola.
(October 2, 2014)
