When you’re living in Sierra Leone and you start coming down with a fever, headache and aching joints, one word is on everyone’s mind: Ebola!
But the symptoms are also common to other diseases including malaria – the country’s deadliest disease for children. Anecdotally, the Ebola outbreak also makes people with more long-standing diseases more reluctant to seek medical attention because of fears of catching Ebola in health centres.
These are some of the reasons behind a new UNICEF-supported anti-malaria campaign over the past two months targeting 2.4 million people. That’s close to half of Sierra Leone’s population.
“Our aim is to make sure malaria cases don’t get mixed up with Ebola, and also to do what we can to reduce the number of malaria deaths,” says Nathalie Daries from UNICEF Sierra Leone’s health section. Misdiagnosing people suffering from malaria puts extra strain on Ebola services, particularly isolation beds and testing services.
In Cottage, close to the Ola During Hospital for children in Freetown, Aisha (18) receives four boxes of malaria drugs. In the household there are three children living with their mother. “I’m very happy to receive the anti-malaria drugs,” says Aisha, “we have suffered from malaria uncountable times in the family.”
The intervention targets all ages above six months.
The first campaign started on 5 December, with the most Ebola-affected areas receiving priority coverage: Port Loko District (1,240 confirmed cases), Bombali District (969) and Western Area around the capital Freetown (Urban = 1,947/ Rural = 1,073). Tonkolili, Kambia, Koinadugu and Moyamba were also part of the campaign.
UNICEF shipped in the drugs and we’re working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to support the Ministry of Health and Sanitation on the distribution.
Abdul Sesay (26) is one of the outreach workers for the campaign: “I’m proud of being a volunteer doing this work for Sierra Leone”. He hands out the medicine and answers questions from people, while volunteer Jusufu Rachid (22) takes note of how many boxes have been distributed. They exchange roles when they feel like a change.
“We received a training of three days and we follow a strict protocol not going into the houses together with respecting the no touch policy,” Abdul adds, reflecting concerns about keeping safe during the Ebola emergency.
Kadyatu Konte (38) has four children of 15, 10, five and two years old. She receives the anti-malaria drugs while listening carefully to the explanations of the health workers. “I’m very happy to receive the drugs because I’m very scared of Ebola,” she says.
With funding from the German Government in the first round, over 9,300 community health workers have been trained to go door-to-door to help administer the drugs, consisting of the effective anti-malarial Artesunate and Amodiaquine (AS + AQ) combined tablets.
A second round of the anti-malaria drug distribution starts on 16 January covering the same districts – as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Funding for the distribution comes from the UAE, while the cost of the drugs is being shared by MSF and the Global Fund.
