Tuesday, August 26, 2014

WHO Statement On Temporary Pull Back From Kailahun, Sierra Leone

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Credit CDC PHIL

 

 


# 9003

 

On Sunday, August 24th in Statement: WHO-Deployed Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola we learned that an international health worker deployed for the Organization in Sierra Leone had contracted the Ebola virus while earlier today Reuters reported that  WHO pulls staff after worker infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone.

 

This afternoon the World Health Organization has emailed out the following statement on their decision.

 

 

Clarification from WHO in Sierra Leone:

WHO working to ensure health workers are protected in Sierra Leone post

The World Health Organization (WHO) has temporarily pulled back its health workers from the Kailahun post in Sierra Leone to the capital after the announcement over the weekend that one of their health workers was infected.


“This was the responsible thing to do. The field team has been through a traumatic time through this incident,” says Dr Daniel Kertesz, WHO Representative in Sierra Leone. “They are exhausted from many weeks of heroic work, helping patients infected with Ebola. When you add a stressor like this, the risk of accidents increases.”


Today the Organization sent a team to the town near the border with Guinea to do a review of the incident on the colleague who became infected. The team will  try to determine how the health worker became infected, review the living and working environment of all the workers, try to identify factors that increase risk of infection, and  address these issues.


“We recognize that this will interrupt the work in the field for the  short term, but it ensures we protect health workers and the help the community over the longer  term,” says Dr Kertesz.  “We are working rapidly to ensure we can return to the field as quickly as possible.”


Once the investigation has been completed and appropriate actions have been taken, WHO will move a team back to Kailahun.  In the meantime, the laboratory work will be performed at the facilities in Kenema.  The next team of health workers for the Kailahun deployment is waiting on standby in Freetown.