In a press briefing held yesterday at the Public Health National Operation Centre (PHNOC) at Cockeril, the Director of Disease Prevention and Control Dr Foday Dafae has said the mandatory swabbing of dead bodies is over, but they will still swab suspected bodies to keep the country safe of the ebola virus.
“From the end of the outbreak in November 2015 to June 30th this year we implemented the mandatory swabbing of all corpses as directed by President Koroma.”
The Director said June 30 was very important to Sierra Leone because they were able to implement the president’s directive to end mandatory swabbing that kept all of the people safe during the ebola outbreak and few months after the end of it.
Dr Dafae said they want to work with the communities to prevent future outbeaks even though the mandatory swabbing has ended. “We are asking that you continue to report all deaths to 117 or your nearest health facility.”
He said losing a loved one is very difficult and the people should not complain why funerals should not return back to the way it used to be, because disease surveillance and monitoring for infectious diseases is key to prevent another outbreak from turning into an epidemic.
“It also ensures we can identify any potential outbreak and be able to respond early enough to prevent loss of many lives.”
Dr Foday Dafae reiterated that there are some details of the death reporting policies going forward that the public need to know so that we can continue to be safe at all times.
He said while there will be a significant scaling down of swabbing, they will keep some stand-by capacity. Also he said disease surveillance officers with a team of existing district Ministry of Health staff will determine if a person who died will need to be swabbed.
“Only deaths which meet the criteria set out by the Ministry of Health as determinied by officers in the districts will be investigated and a swab will be conducted.”
The Director also stressed that deaths meeting ebola definition will activate a rapid response team to conduct the swabbing, and deaths meeting the ebola case defination will be strongly recommended to receive safe and dignified burials in order to protect everyone’s health, especially close relatives.
He also made it very clear that unexplained deaths will be swabbed even though they do not meet the case definition for ebola. “In these cases safe and dignified burials will not be advised.”
Dr Foday Dafae stressed the point that all deaths should be reported to 117 or the nearest health centre, healping to maintain real time death register.
“Death certificates and burial permits are still mandatory, and those that can’t reach 117, should report death to the nearest healthy facility or local authority and they will reach out to the 117 for the actions outlined earlier.”
He said the PHNEOC is actively planning to be ready to respond to any public health threat whether it is an infectious disease such as cholera or a natural disaster such as flooding.
Wednesday July 13, 2016
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