UNICEF to boost staff in Ebola-hit countries

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

New York - The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced that it plans to boost its staff in countries on the frontlines of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

At the UN Headquarters, Dr Peter Salama, Global Ebola Emergency Coordinator for UNICEF, told reporters that the agency will be doubling its staff from 300 to 600 in the three most-affected countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – where children account for one-fifth of all Ebola cases.

Dr Salama also said an estimated 5 million children are affected and some 4 000 children have become orphaned from the current epidemic.

He described as “terrifying” the epidemic as seen from the eyes of the millions of children in the three most affected countries where “death is all around them.”

“Schools are closed, children are confined to their homes and discouraged to play with other children,” he said.

In addition to those orphaned, the UNICEF doctor said “many more are sent away for their own protection” and are confined to “quarantine centres not knowing whether their parents are alive or dead”.

UNICEF, he said, is reaching out to Ebola survivors who are often willing to work on the frontlines of the disease response at the community level in local care centres with community health workers.

The Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury, meanwhile, travelled to Sierra Leone on Monday after visiting Guinea over the weekend. In both countries, he visited Ebola treatment centres in remote areas to see first-hand how the Mission can fill the gaps in the response.

In Sierra Leone, he met with Ebola survivors in Kenema and visited a Logistics Base, run by the World Food Programme in the Port Loko district. He also visited the newly-opened Command and Control Centre, which is in charge of coordinating burials and ambulance pick-ups.

Banbury will also travel to Liberia before he briefs the Security Council next Monday. – SAnews.gov.za