The Maternal/Child Health Center is going strong! Over 25 healthy babies have already been delivered. Demand is so heavy that there is not enough room for everyone waiting -- we will have to build a supplementary waiting area. By all accounts, the nurses and the dispenser are doing a very good job with what they have. The government has not yet supplied them with adult medicines, or even begun paying the staff, but that is scheduled to happen in 2016. In the meantime, we are providing a small stipend, to encourage them without giving the impression that we are taking responsibility for paying their salaries. It is important that this become a government-supported facility for the sake of long-term sustainability. We had a visit and evaluation from Gianine Carbone, an American nurse who worked for the past year in Sierra Leone in the fight against Ebola. She blogged her impressions, and they will be reprinted in a separate update.
This building season, from December through April, attention will be focused on adding two rooms to the school, which grew from 70 pupils to 220 before Ebola struck, and adding two rooms to the clinic. The goal at the clinic is to treat general adult illnesses in addition to supporting maternal and child health, and the additional space will be used to isolate serious cases and to treat adult males, providing the mothers with gender privacy. A building to house the new rice-hulling mill will also be built. Production of mud blocks for these projects is already underway and should be completed within two weeks, according to Fodei.
After a period of several weeks with no Ebola cases, five cases in two different districts were reported in September. Response was quick, however, and no further cases have been reported since then. Two cases surfaced recently in Liberia, however, which had been declared Ebola-free. It seems certain that the virus has not been completely eradicated -- even if temporarily eliminated in humans, it survives in the wild-animal population and may likely transition again at some point to the human population. Continued vigilance will be necessary.
S.C.
This building season, from December through April, attention will be focused on adding two rooms to the school, which grew from 70 pupils to 220 before Ebola struck, and adding two rooms to the clinic. The goal at the clinic is to treat general adult illnesses in addition to supporting maternal and child health, and the additional space will be used to isolate serious cases and to treat adult males, providing the mothers with gender privacy. A building to house the new rice-hulling mill will also be built. Production of mud blocks for these projects is already underway and should be completed within two weeks, according to Fodei.
After a period of several weeks with no Ebola cases, five cases in two different districts were reported in September. Response was quick, however, and no further cases have been reported since then. Two cases surfaced recently in Liberia, however, which had been declared Ebola-free. It seems certain that the virus has not been completely eradicated -- even if temporarily eliminated in humans, it survives in the wild-animal population and may likely transition again at some point to the human population. Continued vigilance will be necessary.
S.C.
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