Officials Admit a ‘Defeat’ by Ebola in Sierra Leone
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Acknowledging a major “defeat” in the fight against Ebola, international health officials battling the epidemic in Sierra Leone
approved plans on Friday to help families tend to patients at home,
recognizing that they are overwhelmed and have little chance of getting
enough treatment beds in place quickly to meet the surging need.
The
decision signifies a significant shift in the struggle against the
rampaging disease. Officials said they would begin distributing
painkillers, rehydrating solution and gloves to hundreds of Ebola-afflicted
households in Sierra Leone, contending that the aid arriving here was
not fast or extensive enough to keep up with an outbreak that doubles in
size every month or so.
“It’s basically admitting defeat,” said Dr. Peter H. Kilmarx, the leader of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s team in Sierra Leone, adding that it was “now national policy that we should take care of these people at home.”
The
effort to prop up a family’s attempts to care for ailing relatives at
home does not mean that officials have abandoned plans to increase the
number of beds in hospitals and clinics. But before the beds can be
added and doctors can be trained, experts warn, the epidemic will
continue to grow.
C.D.C.
officials acknowledged that the risks of dying from the disease and
passing it to loved ones at home were serious under the new policy —
“You push some Tylenol to them, and back away,” Dr. Kilmarx said,
describing its obvious limits.
But
many patients with Ebola are already dying slowly at home, untreated
and with no place to go. There are 304 beds for Ebola patients in Sierra
Leone now, but 1,148 are needed, the World Health Organization reported this week. So officials here said there was little choice but to try the new approach as well.
“For
the first time, the nation is accepting the possibility of home care,
out of necessity,” said Jonathan Mermin, another C.D.C. official and
physician here. “It is a policy out of necessity.”
Faced
with similar circumstances in neighboring Liberia, where even more
people are dying from the disease, the American government said last
month that it would ship 400,000 kits with gloves and disinfectant.
“The
home kits are no substitute for getting people” to a treatment
facility, said Sheldon Yett, the Unicef director for Liberia. “But the
idea is to ensure that if somebody has to take care of somebody at home,
they’re able to do so.”
More than 4,000 people
have died from the outbreak in West Africa, but the United Nations
funding appeal remains woefully short, with countries pledging only
one-fourth of the $1 billion that the world body says it needs to
contain the disease, the United Nations deputy secretary general, Jan
Eliasson, told the General Assembly on Friday.
Britain
has pledged to get an additional 400 beds into urban areas around
Sierra Leone by sometime next month. More rudimentary holding centers
for patients awaiting space in hospitals are planned by the government
here. And promises of international aid have increased substantially
since the outbreak was first identified in neighboring Guinea in March.
But on Friday, Sory Sesay, 2, lay face down on a bench at his home, an arm dangling, his eyes open, listless and apathetic.
What
remained of his family was sitting immobilized on the front porch with
him at their house in Waterloo, just outside Freetown, Sierra Leone’s
capital. All of them were sick: his father, who had already lost his
wife and daughter; his 11 year-old brother; and a 16-year-old neighbor,
whose mother had already died.
They had no painkillers, no rehydrating solution, and only a sack of rice to eat.
“The
government has not yet come in to assist us,” said Sheka Dumbuya, the
local community leader. “Mr. Sesay is actually traumatized. We took them
the day before yesterday to the health center, but there is no space
for them.”http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/world/africa/officials-admit-a-defeat-by-ebola-in-sierra-leone.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0#story-continues-1
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