Abu Kpaka, in his 20’s lost her mother who had been hit by diarrhoea and vomiting while he struggled with her on his back as he trekked the five-mile distance from his Gelihun village to Sulima village where a Community Health Post (CHP) is located.
Kpaka’s mother reportedly vomited and defecated on his back and was pronounced dead at the steps of the CHP. Abu has also been admitted for the same ailment that had taken his mother away from him a few hours ago. The Sulima CHP, there was complete pandemonium, with patients being carted in different directions by health workers and or relations of the sick, and relations chasing health workers for attention to their sick. Sulima village is in the Sorogbema Chiefdom, Pujehun District at the border between Sierra Leone and Liberia and has an estimated population of 3, 800.
Abu was lying under a mango tree receiving treatment. The health center he had gone to for treatment is overwhelmed with patients of diarrhoea and vomiting and relatives running helter-skelter. Several patients were also taking dehydration treatments, with drips dangling from tree branches, lintels of huts and fence posts. Several other patients were also lying on bare floors in the open; some on mats, while others sat on benches, chairs and the laps of their family members and relatives as the drips slowly drop and run through transparent tubes into syringes buried into main blood vessels.
The patients looked emaciated, weak and pale due to hydration. Those patients who were unaccompanied urinate, vomit and defecate on themselves because the heath workers were overwhelmed and or too busy attending new arrivals. The situation looked worrisome to the health workers. People were dying on a daily basis and the health workers were struggling to cope with the influx and inadequacy of drugs and other essentials. Nurse Bridget Sesay, a Maternal and Child Health-Aid (MCH-Aid) stood hapless as she wiped her face of sweat and tears with her plastic gloved hands.
“This is a difficult moment for us”, she admitted, noting that the pressure they are faced with, is mostly due to the “inadequate availability of essential drugs and appropriate medical supplies. Nurse Sesay said they have sent several messages to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Freetown and to like NGOs “about the seriousness of the situation” but that, “we have not received any responses,” the Nurse confirmed, and alluded to the fact that the situation as it were, “has worsened now.”
Diarrhoea and vomiting is caused mainly by poor sanitation, drinking of unclean or contaminated water. The outbreak has seriously disrupted life in that part of the country, with fear of infection hanging over every head.
The health post’s register indicate some two hundred reported cases. There are indications of several hundreds deaths in even more remote villages.
The Community Health Officer (CHO) at a nearby village, Fairo, Moses Tucker said, rebuilding damaged sanitation infrastructures, such as sewage, and latrines and improving the water supply system in the communities, will help to restore the health situation in the community and also arrest the spread of diseases.
A number of patients recounted their misery to Awoko almost in similar detail. Most of these patients had to contain with polythene bags hung on the sides of their beds or wherever they were being treated. These bags were used for urinating, vomiting and emptying of bowels and these have to be emptied at 30 minutes intervals.
“This situation in itself is a cause for concern and a threat to the very attempt of healing the patients,” commented Isata Manga, who was attending to a sick relative at the health post.
Mamie Massaquoi from Gembe village also in the Sorogbema Chiefdom, recounted when she was infected with diarrhea and vomiting two weeks before this outburst. According to her, she became infected because she drank water from the stream. She became seriously sick thereafter with diarrhea and vomiting to the extent that she went unconscious due to hydration and she had to be rushed to the community health post and was treated on dehydration drips; but she lamented, “my eight-year old daughter could not make it, when she was subsequently infected. She died in my lap,” she said, with tears flowing down her face.
Tucker said since the outbreak, two patients have died in his hands at the heath center while another four died in another village some distance away from where he is.
This is not the first time diarrhea and vomiting have broke up in Sorogbema Chiefdom. In 2010, CHO Tucker explained, fourteen people lost their lives as a result.
Tucker disclosed that World Vision-Korea has provided funding support to World Vision-Sierra Leone’s partnership with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the Pujehun District Council to procure life-saving drugs for both community health centers in the Sorogbema Chiefdom.
The Programme Manager of World Vision-Sierra Leone’s Pujehun Area Development Programme, Samuel Toma Perker said the donation is an emergency intervention to save vulnerable lives.
He noted the need for intensified information dissemination on the dos and don’ts in addressing diarrhea and vomiting situations. He said lack in knowledge on how to prevent and treat cases of diarrhea and vomiting, proper hygiene are central to the causes of such outbreaks. He called on the government and non-governmental organizations to assist in the provision of medical drugs and diarrheal kits to avert the spread of the disease to other vulnerable communities.
Section Chief of Fairo, Abdulrahman Zoker said there are only four water wells in his entire Section and that there are very few toilets. “Toilet facilities are not enough here. Children defecate in the open, near kitchens etc.,” Chief Zoker admitted, and called on government and NGOs to help his community with more safe drinking water facilities and toilets.
In another related development, a similar outbreak has also been reported in Yeleboya in Northern Sierra Leone, killing more than ten people. A cholera outbreak has been declared in the area by the government’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation.
By Saidu Bah just from Pujehun
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