Highlights
· The total number of confirmed cases of Ebola rose this week from 3,269 to 3,287, with 18 new confirmed cases from prefectures of Forecariah (11); Boke (6) and the Town of Conakry (1) (WHO, Ebola Situation Report, 8 July 2015).
· The number of confirmed deaths rose from 2,039 to 2,049 this past week, with a total count of 2,499 confirmed and probable deaths.
· UNICEF is the lead agency in social mobilization and community engagement and has been most active in prefectures of Boke, Forécariah, Dubréka and Benty, in close collaboration with the National Ebola Coordination. A monitoring initiative aiming at strengthening community and local authority engagement, and a stronger active case finding has been ongoing in targeted villages of Kolotoyah in Forécariah, Kigbaly in Benty, Tamaranssy in Boke and Dubréka.
· Strengthening surveillance in border areas continues to be the focus of the response. In partnership with the Scouts, 535 people were reached through mass sensitization at the harbour in Kamsar (Boké), which is visited by fishermen from the islands bordering Guinea Bissau. In Forécariah, which borders Sierra Leone, 26 social mobilizers were trained.
· Nutrition data collection, following the Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transition (SMART) survey method, is ongoing nationwide, now reaching more than 1,000 households (approx. 1/8 of targeted households for the survey).