New British funded and staffed ebola treatment centre opens in Kerry Town in Sierra Leone as death toll reaches more than 1,500
THIS is the new British ebola treatment centre which will be the frontline in the battle against the killer disease in Sierra Leone.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 3,778 cases of Ebola in the country and 1,510 deaths.
The Kerry Town complex includes an 80 bed treatment centre to be managed by Save the Children and a 12 bed centre staffed by British Army medics specifically for health care workers and international staff responding to the Ebola crisis.
The construction of the treatment facility was paid for by UK tax payers through the Department for International Development and designed and overseen by British Army Royal Engineers.
It took just eight weeks to build the complex.
It is the first of six centres to be built by Britain in a bid to contain, control and defeat Ebola in Sierra Leone.
Justine Greening, International Development Secretary, said:
“Sierra Leone does not have enough hospital beds to cope with the scale of the Ebola crisis. Patients are being turned away from hospitals, reducing their chance of survival and allowing the disease to spread.
“That is why British Army Engineers together with Sierra Leonean construction workers have been working round the clock for the last eight weeks to get Kerry Town built. This treatment facility, the first of six British-built centres, will give patients the care they need to fight Ebola, limiting the spread of this terrible disease.
“I pay tribute to Save the Children and to the heroic British medics, Sierra Leonean health workers and international volunteers whose work in this facility has the potential to save countless lives.”
The new also hosts an Ebola testing laboratory run by British scientists to accurately diagnose patients and by opening has doubled the country’s lab capacity.
Justin Forsyth, CEO Save the Children, who has recently returned from Sierra Leone, said:
“The Kerry Town treatment centre is critical to the fight against Ebola.
"On my recent trip I was moved by the impact on children. I met one girl who lost her entire family and then all her possessions when her house was burnt down, leaving her with nothing. She said I am completely alone. We must stand with children like Emma in their hour of need."
The head of the DfID-led UK Ebola Taskforce, Donal Brown, predicted that the new centres "will have a huge impact".
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today he said: "We are making progress," he said, pointing out that that four weeks ago "very few" bodies were being picked up for burial but now 100% of bodies reported were being buried within 24 hours."
Meanwhile the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee says it has raised £13m for tackling Ebola, a week after its appeal launch.
The DEC is made up of 13 British aid charities which are helping to run treatment facilities and care centres in Sierra Leone.
The Mirror witnessed first hand the horrors of ebola earlier this year
The British response to Ebola in numbers
200 – the number of clinical staff as well as many more support staff Save the Children is recruiting to help run the Kerry Town Ebola treatment centre.
20 – the number of beds there will be especially for healthcare workers after 60 days staffed by medics from the British Army’s 22 Field Hospital Army for the first four months of operation.
80 - the total capacity of the facility which will gradually open over the coming weeks to help reduce the risk of infection.
700 - the number of UK-supported beds there will be on completion of five other treatment facilities, at Port Loko, Makeni, Moyamba, and two more centres in Freetown.
8,800 – the number of patients over six months these facilities will provide medical care for.
230million – in pounds the total the UK is contributing to fund treatment centres, burial teams and chlorine and protective clothing for thousands of health workers.
200 - new community care centres due to open
300,000 – personal protective suits ordered
58 – vehicles including four ambulances provided by the UK
240 – health workers trained a week
11 – aid supply flights
750 – military personal deployed
1 – Royal Navy support ship, RFA Argus
3 – Merlin helicopters
