UN Agency Updates
IOM
IOM is sustaining its Magazine Wharf outbreak response support to PHUs into week 4 after a call by the NERC for all partners to continue operations through September. IOM will continue to deploy 8 training staff to the 8 Peripheral Health Units surrounding the Magazine Wharf community of Freetown in support of RING Infection Prevention and Control in collaboration with Concern Worldwide, GOAL, Save the Children, the UK Department for International Development, the US AID/OFDA and US CDC. The past 2 weeks has seen an ongoing and intensive transmission of new cases in the area totaling 15 cases, with a total of 22 individuals being treated at the Police Training School ETU in Hastings or under observation in the holding center. Over 300 contacts are being followed up in Western Area Urban.
A 2-day basic IPC course was delivered to 57 trainees including police officers, RSLAF troops, community representatives, social mobilizers and health screeners in Kambia.
IOM clinicians have begun Infection Prevention and Control training support, ward mentorship and advanced screening at Connaught, Princess Christian’s Maternity and Ola During Children’s Hospitals in collaboration with the Ebola Response Consortium in Freetown. Rokupa and Macauley Street Hospitals in Freetown and Port Loko Hospital have also requested support.
IOM has set up a new sub-office in Kamakwie town, northern Bombali district, as an operations center for all cross border interventions in Sella Limba and Tambaka chiefdoms which border Kambia and Guinea.
In collaboration with the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF), 19 IOM monitors and 80 staff of the Passenger Welfare Organization (PAWEL) have deployed at 47 Village Crossing Points (VCPs) in 3 chiefdoms - Samu, Gbileh Dixon and Bramaia in Kambia district. VCPs are classified as category B and C crossings defined as semi-permanently manned with no formal infrastructure or a completely informal crossing point and may take the shape of a track through a forested area.