World Hope Ebola Response

The UN has called the Ebola outbreak in West Africa “by far the largest, longest and most severe ever known.” The epidemic killed over 11,300 people and affected over 28,600 people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Specifically, Sierra Leone was the hardest hit country, tallying more than 14,100 total cases in the country. 

View an up-to-date map of the Ebola outbreak. 

WHI Ebola Response Efforts

We have been working on the ground in Sierra Leone since 1996 and boosted our efforts during the outbreak to support vulnerable men, women and children. Your generous donations enabled us to help fight the spread of this horrible disease. 

Because of your support and our partnerships with the Wesleyan Emergency Relief Fund, Ministry of Health and Sanitation, World Health Organization, UNICEF, CDC and UKAID, we are proud to report the following accomplishments:

• discharge transports in WHI ambulances: more than 800 
• patients triaged in WHI-created and managed Community Care Centers (CCCs): over 2,500
• inpatients cared for in CCC’s: 350
• maternity transports in WHI ambulances: 25 
• training on IPC: 300 people
• containers of food and supply donations delivered: 11
• meals fed to quarantined people in WHI-managed guest quarantine: 7,200
• beneficiaries of food distributions: 2,290 people
• bags of donated rice distributed: 441
• gallons of donated palm oil delivered: 468
• donated clothes for Ebola-affected children delivered: 44
• care packages of food and basic living essentials for survivors: 26
• bars of soap distributed to CHOs: 12,000
• flash lights and batteries to CHOs: 750 
• training on ways to prevent further spread of Ebola: 864
• trainers and CHOs t-shirts with Ebola key messages on prevention delivered: 920
• training on Ebola prevention and detection of symptoms + supplies of hygienic materials: in 15 villages
• 155 border officials and 92 community leaders have been trained from Sierra Leone and Guinea
• new water wells drilled: 25, 10 of which are for healthcare units (e.g., Community Care Centers, hospitals, etc.)
• community Sensitization Meetings: held in 4,298 villages for 177,000 individuals
• repeated health care and wellbeing visits to people under quarantine: 835 persons
• individuals reached during house to house visits during “Sit at home days”: 114,092 individuals checked for signs of Ebola
• engagement of survivors and their families: 2,072 individuals in 52 villages
• training of secret societal heads as safe burial teams: 130 societal heads

Health

EVD Survivor Clinic
Ebola survivors face a long line of struggles referred to as “post-Ebola syndrome,” which include physical symptoms, such as joint pain and loss of vision and hearing, and psychosocial issues as a result of emotional trauma and stigmatization.

To address these concerns, World Hope International, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, World Health Organization, and with support from the Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors Bombali, Case Management and Psychosocial Pillars from the DERC, opened an EVD Survivor Clinic (EVDSC) in the Bombali District of Sierra Leone.

Opened since late May 2015, the EVDSC is a Static Unit that provides acute care and ongoing management to these EVD survivors. There is also a mobile unit that travels all over the district to care for survivors unable to come in to the clinic.

Community Care Centers
WHI partnered with UNICEF and the Government of Sierra Leone to bring more beds to the country in the form of Community Care Centers (CCC) – a model that makes care more accessible and approachable to those impacted by the disease. In total, we constructed and managed 15 new CCCs in Bombali District – one of Sierra Leone’s worst-hit districts.

Isolation Facility
In partnership with the Wesleyan Church, we also set-up an isolation facility at Kamakwie Hospital in Bombali District and sent a health care team there to train staff and provide medical supplies. The Ebola Isolation Facility ensured health workers are continuously trained on everything from dressing in their Personal Protective Equipment to proper handling and burials of those who have died. 

Hospital Renovations
In Makeni, WHI oversaw the much needed retrofit of the Paramedical Holding Center and Makeni Regional Hospital Maternity and Pediatrics areas. Currently, WHI is upgrading Kamakwie Wesleyan Hospital IPC and WASH facilities, including a new isolation unit, incinerator and morgue. 

Medical Supplies
Throughout the course of the outbreak, WHI received eleven containers with medical supplies, equipment and medication that were distributed to both private and government health units, including hospitals, clinics and PHUs.

Education

WHI supported the government of Sierra Leone’s campaign to educate the public about Ebola. This campaign included radio broadcasts and village-by-village seminars on what this disease is, how it is transmitted and what to do if a person suspects they may be infected. We also conducted house-to-house visits during a three-day lock down in September 2014 that entailed searching for Ebola patients, distributing medical supplies and providing information about Ebola.

Maternal and Child Support

World Hope International worked with the Makeni Government Maternity Ward to improve its Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and to provide safe care for women and neonates. In partnership with UKAID, WHI worked to improve the facility’s water supply through highly-focused maintenance, survey and drilling, as well as improved broken and/or missing plumbing. WHI also worked on faulty electrical connections, inadequate triage facilities, and insufficient supplies for infection prevention within the ward. The Maternity Ward’s staff was also trained by WHI to implement updated policies and procedures relating to infection prevention.

With additional support from UNICEF, we are also incorporating Ebola prevention and response activities into WHI’s ongoing Maternal and New Born Health project in Bombali district. Through this effort, trained and supervised Community Health Workers will enhance outreach and education services to include Ebola key messages, facts on its prevention and information on universal precaution to ensure infection control. The program also provides assistance to Mothers Support Groups that support pregnant women and nursing mothers and educates them on signs and symptoms of Ebola.

Additionally, WHI provided repeated psychosocial care, school and food supplies as well as clothes to 240 Ebola affected children and orphans in Bombali and Western Urban District to enable these children to overcome their trauma, to reintegrate into their communities and to prevent their school dropout.

Ambulances and Transportation

In Sierra Leone, some hospitals have ambulances while others do not, so people often take taxis or physically carry the sick to a hospital, which contributes to the spread of the disease. In response, the CDC and Ministry of Health approached us for help. We provided a total of 10 trucks to serve as ambulances.

Through our staff, truck and ambulance resources we transported Ebola and non-Ebola related cases, including transporting mothers to hospitals for delivery. We also assisted with the distribution of airlifted medical supplies to hospitals and clinics and helping to escort experts, such as the CDC, to conduct assessments of the region.

Food and Income Security

The Ebola emergency left a shortage of manpower for food production and a spike in food costs. In response, we ramped up our Affordable Greenhouses program, a partnership with Penn State’s Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship Program (PSU-HESE). Introduced in 2014, the program utilizes our existing network of Village Cooperatives organized through the Outgrowers Project and provides smallholder farmers an opportunity to learn how to build Affordable Greenhouses, use them to grow vegetables year-round, and capitalize on employment and income generation opportunities.

As part of the Livelihood Enhancement for Affected People (LEAP) Consortium, a partnership with World Vision Sierra Leone (Lead), BRAC, and Catholic Relief Services, WHI has received a grant from Sierra Leone's Department for International Development (DFID) for a project that will improve the economic status of 42,000 targeted petty traders in Sierra Leone who lost their business capital during the EVD crisis by providing necessary capital support and financial training for them to resume their businesses. Through this project, petty traders will be supported with low interest loans and grants to help stimulate meaningful growth of small or medium scale businesses.  

Water and Sanitation

We provided borehole water wells and sanitation facilities for Ebola treatment centers using our experienced Water and Sanitation team. In addition, we helped to maintain, survey, and enhance existing water wells at Ebola centers to reliably support patient and medical staff needs. We also helped to drill a new water well for a 48-bed Red Cross Ebola Treatment Center located in Kono District.

Connectivity

With support from NetHope and in partnership with EveryLayer, we helped to build Internet connectivity for the first time in the region. We connected the Gbendembu Clinic, Magbenteh clinic, the District Ebola Response Committee office, and the Makeni Regional Government Hospital and also provided extra bandwidth at WHI’s Makeni offices and at Kamakwie Wesleyan Hospital. The grand also provided funding for 20 tablets.

Border Training

In Sierra Leone, EVD initially came through a sick traveler and spread by people crossing borders. In an effort to educate Sierra Leoneans on border control, WHI conducted a two-day border training in Gbentu for Guinean and Sierra Leonean border officials and local stakeholders. Funded by the Department for International Development, WHI trained citizens of both countries in six chiefdoms of the Sierra Leonean Koinadugu District to develop strategies to improve the response activities and cooperation between the two countries in eradicating the Ebola Virus Disease.

Burial Practices

In the Bombali district of Sierra Leone, one of the major ways the Ebola virus was spread was through traditional burial practices - the washing and touching of dead bodies. WHI, in partnership with the District Health Management Team, International Organization of Migration and USAID launched a "Traditional Burial Project" to build up community-based safe burial teams and fight the spread of Ebola. Through our program, every corpse, sick with Ebola or not, was collected and dressed in protective clothes, and buried safely in two concealed body bags. By training traditional healers, ceremonial members and representatives of different cultural societies, WHI aimed to get local decision makers and opinion leaders on board that are connected and respected in their communities in order to break the transmission chain.

Click here for more information about WHI's Ebola response and to read case studies about some of the on-the-ground programs.