By Miranda Miller, Staff writer
An eerie silence permeates the streets of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, as a team of volunteers go door to door in a campaign to educate people on the dangers of Ebola and identify those who may have the disease. This is the reality of the three-day lockdown that Sierra Leone has imposed.
In recent months, Ebola has has killed more than 560 people in Sierra Leone and more than 2,600 across West Africa in the biggest outbreak of the disease ever recorded, according to the World Health Organization. It has also spread to Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal, sickening an estimated 5,500 people. Sierra Leone’s government hoped that by forbidding anyone to leave their homes for three days, they could finally get the disease under control. Thousands of volunteers have teamed up in order to go door-to-door and educate communities of the disease. Although Doctors Without Borders has said that the lockdown is unlikely to stop the spread, the main goal is to make sure residents understand the causes of Ebola and how the disease is transmitted so they can help to reduce the spread of the disease and help those in need. After three days, a reported 75 percent of the targeted 1.5 million households had been visited by volunteer forces.
The largest problem for most families was the lack of sufficient nourishment during the lockdown. Because many of the poorer residents use the money they make each day to buy food, it was very difficult to prepare for a three-day lockdown. In Bonga Town, a shantytown near Freetown, many residents were angry that handouts of rice were only distributed to certain families. The World Food Program was providing out various foods to homes but reportedly not delivering them to every home, only to those put under medical quarantine. The program distributed two weeks’ worth of rations to 20,000 households in slum communities before the lockdown, but many communities said that the rations were insufficient. Many people also began refusing the food, in fear that what they were being given was poisoned and possibly deadly.
Despite all the difficulties, the lockdown has been generally successful. Most citizens have been more than willing to comply with the restrictions of the lockdown. Although it is obviously inconvenient, people are happy to have volunteers working towards the elimination of the disease that they have watched deeply damage their communities.