The number of new confirmed Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) cases in Sierra Leone continues to be reported in very high numbers as the West African nation saw an additional 421 cases during in the past week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said transmission remains intense in the capital Freetown, which reported 77 new confirmed cases in the past week and there is intense transmission in the country’s west and north.
During the past 21 days, Sierra Leone had reported 1,211 EVD cases.
While Ebola transmission is intense in Sierra Leone, the good news is there is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, according to the WHO.
A total of 14,068 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of EVD and 5,147 deaths have been reported up to the end of 9 November 2014 by the Ministries of Health of Guinea and Sierra Leone, and 8 November by the Ministry of Health of Liberia.
To make things worse in Sierra Leone, the BBC reports hundreds of health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone.
The staff are protesting about the government’s failure to pay a”hazard payment” for treating Ebola patients. The clinic is run by Doctors without Borders (MSF) and is located in Bandajuma. It is the only Ebola treatment centre in southern Sierra Leone.
MSF officials have expressed concern that if the strike continues, the clinic would have to be closed.
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