Ebola in Sierra Leone: The inexcusable excuse

Alpha Kanu, Sierra Leone's Minister of Information and Communication

Sierra Leone's Minister of Information, Alpha Kanu, on Thursday attempted to counter established facts about the country`s weak health system which played a major role in the government’s failure to properly handled the 2014/15 Ebola epidemic.

Kanu told State Broadcaster SLBC’s breakfast show ‘The Podium’ that the health system wasn’t weak. He said it just wasn’t prepared to handle the Ebola virus disease.

This is in line with a now familiar excuse by the government which has always argued that Ebola was a 'new' disease, whatever that means, and that it had taken everyone by surprise. In effect when they say this, such officials expect that the poor and helpless masses should understand and accept the unacceptable impact of the epidemic on the people.

As to whether Ebola is new is a very weak argument, but that is a debate for another day.

The point for now is: when a health system is strong, it can handle any disease in the world. At least Senegal, Mali and Nigeria, our very close neighbors, demonstrated this.

All that was needed to contain the spread of the Ebola virus were Personal Protection Equipments (PPEs) for health workers, beds in treatment centers to accommodate sick people, laboratories to test for viruses and bacteria.... And we didn't have to have Ebola to get these things in place.

Kanu`s argument was that the health system was at its best, as it was expected to be without Ebola. But how would you call a health system in which health workers couldn't be provided with PPEs as basic as hand gloves?

Hand gloves are basic necessities in every healthcare facility and central to the basic infection prevention control protocols. They protect against bacterial and viral infections, not just Ebola.

The death rate among healthcare workers to the virus was the highest among all other populations in Sierra Leone. And many of them contracted the virus because they didn't have hand gloves.

In the same 'The Podium' programme, Mr Kanu, in response to a viewer’s contribution about China’s role in the Ebola fight, said the Chinese were the ones who introduced PPEs into the country as part of their response effort to the epidemic.

"At the time we had not even heard of the word PPEs," the Minister told presenter Asmieu Bah. Quite an admission!

That may have been an exaggeration though, a typical characteristic of the Information Minister. But he was right on one thing. That's that PPEs were just not part of the priorities of the health ministry.

Hopeless Sierra Leoneans can only hope that the government has really learnt from its experience and demonstrates so by not just providing adequate resources but also ensure that such resources go to the appropriate place.

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