Ebola on the Ground

While Western media coverage of the Ebola crisis faded sometime in November, daily case counts in Sierra Leone continued to grow exponentially through the top of the new year. Okayafrica, teaming up with single-subject news site Ebola Deeply, arrived in Freetown on New Year's Eve in the midst of a countrywide State of Emergency.

Part 1: introduction to the Outbreak in Sierra Leone (2mins)

Part 2: looks at the economic effects of one of Sierra Leone's biggest tourist attractions, the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Bala Amarasekaran, the Sanctuary’s founder and program director, fears that the economic damage will not be quickly turned around, “it took us ten years to wipe out the rebel war image, now it is Ebola, it will take us another ten years, so that means this is going to have a tremendous impact on tourism. (5mins)

Part 3: looks at the roles of District Surveillance Officers in bringing the outbreak under control. The video follows a team in the East End of Freetown as they investigate a possible Ebola case and visit quarantined families to evaluate if any have developed the virus. (6mins)

Part 4: reveals an intimate portrait of Mohamed Bailor Bah, a footballer who has taken a job as an Ebola Treatment Center hygienist tasked with disinfecting the highest risk wards at a nearby medical facility. From his home in the fishing village of Tokeh outside Freetown, Sierra Leone, he describes the way his new job has affected his thinking and his relationships. (4mins)

Part 5: reveals an intimate portrait a picturesque seaside village an hour outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone, as they struggle to protect their community against the Ebola outbreak. (7mins)

Part 6: O.B. Sisay, the leader of Sierra Leone's National Ebola Response Center, takes us on a step-by-step guide to how Sierra Leoneans have worked tirelessly to get the Ebola outbreak under control -- from the emergency call center and the neighborhood surveillance officers to the contact tracers and the armed quarantine zones, and from the new "safe and dignified" burial practices to the newly constructed Ebola graveyards. (9mins)