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STORY: SIERRA LEONE / WESTERN AREA SURGE
TRT: 2.00
SOURCE: UNMEER
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 14 DECEMBER 2014, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
1. Wide shot, British Council Western Area Emergency Response Centre exterior
2. Various shots, British military and local staff notating daily cases on board
3. Various shots, Sierra Leone military staff rolling area maps
4. Wide shot, Western Area emergency response advisor Victoria Parkinson talking to British military staff
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Victoria Parkinson, Africa Government Initiative (AGI) Western Area Emergency Response Advisor:
“We are dispatching burial teams, we are dispatching ambulances to pick up sick patients, and we are ensuring that the quarantine activities that need to go into effect when someone has been confirmed EVD take effect. So, with the surge starting, what that means is that we are adding additional social mobilizers into communities.”
6. Pan right, social mobilizers with their motorcycles awaiting assignment
7. Close up, “Kick Out Ebola” painted on motorcycle tank
8. Pan left, social mobilizers riding on a motorbike through market
9. Pan right, pig walking through Susan’s Bay slum while social milliners talk to local people
10. Pan right, from kids swimming in the bay to kids playing atop a heap of garbage
11. Med shot, children dancing atop a heap of garbage
12. Pan right, Susan’s Bay slum
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Maada M. Rogers, Western Area Disease Surveillance Officer:
“This is a very densely populated community. For us to have one case here, it means we have to increase on our surveillance, and that’s exactly what we are doing now. We have removed up to five cases here. We are visiting here again today to see if there are more cases and then we can know what to do.”
14. Med shot, social mobilizers visiting the home of Bolo Abu Mansaroi, under quarantine
15. Tilt down, from children to social mobilizer notating daily cases
16. Close up, social mobilizer notating daily cases
17. Pan left, from mural to social mobilizers visiting home where nine people died
18. Close up, social mobilizer asking residents about their health
19. Pan right, social mobilizer talking to residents
20. Tilt up, from girl to narrow alley
21. Wide shot, kids and animals walking through garbage
22. Tilt down, Handicap Youths Development Centre building under quarantine
23. Close up, residents behind quarantine line ribbon
24. Med shot, residents laughing behind quarantine line ribbon
The Western Area surge got under way today (17 December) in Freetown in an effort to contain the alarming rise in registered Ebola cases in Sierra Leone.
The increasingly high transmission rates reported in recent weeks, lead the Government of Sierra Leone and UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) to mount the surge response.
The emphasis of the surge will be on increased safe burials, ambulance dispatching and quarantine activities, as well as adding additional social mobilizers into communities.
SOUNDBITE (English) Victoria Parkinson, Africa Government Initiative (AGI) Western Area Emergency Response Advisor:
“We are dispatching burial teams, we are dispatching ambulances to pick up sick patients, and we are ensuring that the quarantine activities that need to go into effect when someone has been confirmed EVD take effect. So, with the surge starting, what that means is that we are adding additional social mobilizers into communities.”
This social mobilizer team is being dispatched to the Susan’s Bay slum, a densely populated and extremely poor area of Freetown.
SOUNDBITE (English) Maada M. Rogers, Western Area Disease Surveillance Officer:
“This is a very densely populated community. For us to have one case here, it means we have to increase on our surveillance, and that’s exactly what we are doing now. We have removed up to five cases here. We are visiting here again today to see if there are more cases and then we can know what to do.”
Maada’s team visits Bolo Abu Mansaroi’s home, which was placed under quarantine after one person in the home was infected.
In another nearby home, nine people died and the rest of the family fled the area.
Sierra Leone, one of the three hardest-hit countries, together with Guinea and Liberia, is among the least developed countries in the world. Overcrowding and dangerous hygienic conditions in slums such as Susan’s bay are a factor for the high transmission of the Ebola virus, as well as diarrhoea, malaria, tuberculosis and cholera infections.
At the nearby Handicap Youths Development Centre residents were placed under quarantine after a baby who arrived with his mother from a rural area died and tested positive for the virus.
After 4 days of quarantine and 17 to go, residents are unnerved, but trying to stay positive.
