This article was originally published by Ebola Deeply.
By Cinnatus Dumbaya
Ebola Deeply's Cinnatus Dumbaya met the Honorable Patricia Umu Brown, Sierra Leone's member of parliament for Kambia district, a recent hotspot in the race to zero cases. Kambia skirts the Guinean district of Forecariah, where the majority of Guinea's Ebola cases currently lie.
Ebola Deeply: What is the current situation in Kambia district?
Brown: For the past three weeks the district really has mobilized. When the president visited us he gave us the responsibility to finish Ebola. He actually kind of scolded us, saying that Kambia district seems to be holding the whole nation to ransom. After that meeting, we put a plan together with the National Ebola Response Center (NERC) and the District Ebola Response Center (DERC), which we called the Kambia Community Action Plan.
In fact, one of my colleagues, a member of parliament for constituency 37, is currently in police custody for allegedly breaching state of emergency regulations.
Ebola Deeply: Which specific regulation did he breach?
Brown: He was accused of ordering the washing of the corpse of his late father. This is a very serious breach, you know, because at this point we should serve as role models. Our people are looking at us and we should behave better. Otherwise it will be difficult to win this fight.
He is in the hands of the police and, if found guilty, they will deal with him accordingly. So I don’t know exactly what will happen but I am sure they would like to set a clear example.
Ebola Deeply: You mentioned the Kambia Community Action Plan—what is this exactly?
Brown: The Kambia Community Action Plan brings together representatives from the district, including chiefs, women’s groups, councillors, youths, MPs, and just about everyone. We called all of them to come back to help root Ebola out of our district for once and for all. For the past three weeks, we have had nine groups, each one headed by a paramount chief. In these groups, we have the involvement of community people and even members of the Ebola response team such as social mobilizers and contact tracers.
What we do is go right round the communities where there are quarantined homes, and meet the people to try to get to know their problems and what their concerns are. We go back to the drawing board and put together action plans after having gathered information. We have head men, youths, chiefs, and women coming to those meetings.
NERC helps us put together a set of questions, such as: Why do we still have Ebola in our communities? Why do we still keep sick people in our communities and why are we not reporting the sick? We call these people to talk to us openly and actively. Believe me, we have learned a lot from their answers. We have taken a record of all those comments given and put together an action plan.
Ebola Deeply: How effective has this action plan been in tackling Ebola?
Brown: Communities themselves have given us all the answers from the questions we are asking. We want them to own the fight now. We don’t want foreigners to go and talk to them. We mobilized ourselves to go and talk to them. After we heard all their concerns, we realized that people were really waiting to hear from people who know them. They trust us. We encouraged them and prevailed on them to cooperate with the authorities to end Ebola.
They appreciate it because we are talking to them in their own local languages. That makes the interaction much easier with the community people. They promised that they would do things differently because they have seen people who speak their own local language and they are happy about that.
Ebola Deeply: Has the Sierra Leone military been involved in Kambia at all?
Brown: We know we are on the border with Guinea and we have a lot of porous border crossing points. So the army has mobilized. Almost all the jetties have army presences in all the wharfs and everywhere where there is a possibility of people crossing over from Guinea to Sierra Leone. Whether it is on land or sea, the army is camping there to observe movements and provide security. This is because we are trying to restrict movement between Guineans crossing to Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans crossing over to Guinea. So the army is helping us a lot in that respect.
Ebola Deeply: There is a lot of cross-border trade between Guinea and Sierra Leone. How do you keep cross-border trade going but minimize the risks of Ebola?
Brown: That is the difficulty. When we talk about Ebola, it certainly has a lot of inconveniences. So we are telling people to be patient with the situation. What would you gain from trading if you then lose your life in the process? Their lives are more precious to us than the money they are trading for.
So we all have to work together to protect ourselves from the troubles of Ebola. There are constraints because we don’t have anything yet to give to these people to prevent them from going to these places to trade, but we are pleading with them to be patient for at least one month while we observe the situation because in Kambia we are fighting to get to zero.
Ebola Deeply: Guinea is not only a neighbor but also a sister country to us, though it seems to be a headache in the fight against Ebola. Are you worried about this situation?
Brown: Very much so. In fact, that is why we have made a formal request to the NERC and the DERC to strengthen our border security. As you said, Guinea is like a sister country to us. There are lots of commonalities between us that make it hard to completely cut each other off. At one house in Kambia district you will find the front door in Sierra Leone and the back door in Guinea.
You can straddle the two countries with one leg in each. So this is how close we are. We have a lot of inter-marriages between us, and families are crossing over to see one another. We are trying, but it is a difficult thing to actually restrict movement in the real sense. So that is why we don’t really do anything bad to those who cross over; we are just pleading with them to be patient with us because for the next couple of weeks we will restrict movement and we will closely monitor this.
Ebola Deeply: We heard of one family, the Kamara family in Kambia, who ran away from a quarantined home. Can you tell us what happened?
Brown: Unfortunately, they are still at large. But we have locked the house where they were. They escaped on a rainy night using the back door. There were security forces guarding the house but they were stationed at the front door. These people used the back door in the middle of the night and took to the bush, unknown to the security personnel.
We asked an Ebola survivor to check the house in the morning, to ascertain whether there was anybody inside, but he discovered that the whole family of five had fled. We are still seriously looking for them. In fact, we reported it to the NERC, to make an announcement with their names and descriptions. We have reached out using social media, newspapers and radio stations.
So we are kindly asking the public to help us look for the Kamara family. They are a risk to the public out there. The sooner we apprehend them, the better for all of us. If they go to anybody who is a family member in any part of the country they should call 1-1-7 and report this, just as the people in the community of Rutile did for a suspected Ebola case who had fled there from Freetown. Ebola is not too far from finishing, but anyone who breaches these rules does not deserve respect.
Ebola Deeply: How effective and efficient is the response team in Kambia district?
Brown: It has improved massively. The ambulances are swift these days to respond to any suspected case. The burial team has also improved seriously, with no delay in taking swabs. They are even performing the burial service in a more dignified manner that pleases the community. They now allow for the wrapping of the body and permit the family to pray not too far from the corpse (standing at a distance) before burial.
Ebola Deeply: Kambia recorded a new case last week, after going two weeks with zero Ebola diagnoses. When do you think Kambia will actually be Ebola-free, like many areas in the rest of the country?
Brown: Well, even though we are recording new cases. I would like to say we have contained the spread of transmission. All the new cases are from quarantined homes. This means we have it under control now so, by God’s will, we will soon get to zero.
*****
*****
Cinnatus Dumbaya is a contributor to Ebola Deeply.
[Photo courtesy of Ebola Deeply]