Sierra Leone News

The Directorate of Disease Prevention and Control (DPC) in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) held its 4th quarter 2011 disease surveillance review meeting from 20-21 January 2012. The meeting examined the status of surveillance activities in the country for the period under review and set agenda for the first quarter of 2012.

Sierra Leone launched the first round of polio National Immunization Days (NIDs) Campaign 2012 in Waterloo on 23 March 2012. Hon Borbor Sawyer, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation launched the campaign, which will run from 23-26 March 2012. Delivering his state-ment, the Hon Deputy Minister said, “the community must ensure that the campaign is successfully delivered to ensure our children are pro-tected from the discomforting challenges of permanent disability”. He further reaffirmed Sierra Leone’s commitment “to remain a strong party to the global polio eradication effort”.

A team of international financial management and health technical experts of the Joint Funding Platform completed a one week scoping mission in Sierra Leone. The team comprised of experts from GAVI, Global Fund World Bank and WHO. The mission was conducted under the leadership of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and facilitated by different levels of WHO.

(A) BACKGROUND

A multi-sectoral taskforce was set up to plan this year’s World Health Day activities under the theme “Save Lives. Make Hospitals Safe in Emergencies.’’ The committee was chaired by the Programme Manager Health Education and Promotion. The taskforce held several meetings to plan for this event.

(B) COMMEMORATIVE ACTIVITIES

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation in collaboration with its health sector partners is currently planning to undertake the fifth round of polio National Immunization Days campaign in 2011. The campaign will be conducted from 30 September through 3 October 2011 to vaccinate all children in the country below the age of 5 years against polio.

Freetown, February 26 -- The Vice President of Sierra Leone Honourable Alhaji Chief Sam sumana signed the WHO Country Biennial Plan for 2010-2011 at his office, Tower Hill, Freetown. Present at the signing ceremony were the Minister of Finance, Dr Samura Kamara, Minister of Trade and Industries, Mr David Carew and Minister of State in the Vice President’s office, Dr Komba Kono.

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The National Malaria Control Programme of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in collaboration with the World Health Or-ganization has conducted orientation of field enumerators to un-dertake malaria rapid impact assessment in the country. This is taking into consideration the recent increased financial invest-ment and coverage of anti-malaria interventions in the country which are expected to result in reduction of malaria cases and deaths. The assessment will be carried out from 6-9 October in selected public/private hospitals around the country.

12 new cases of polio outbreak have been confirmed recently since its eradication from Sierra Leone 10 years ago

Sierra Leone joined the rest of the World to commemorate World Health Day on the theme "Urbanization and Health". The task-force that was set up by the Ministry of Health and sanitation to coordinate the commemora-tion organized a number of activities.

Statement from the Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation Honorable Mohamed Koroma was broadcast on National TV and Radio while the message from the Regional Director Dr Luis G. Sambo was read by the WHO Rep-resentative Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu. 

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) in collaboration with WHO is conducting a combined external surveillance review and post introduction evaluation (PIE) of Pneumococcal vaccine that was introduced into the country's immunization programme in January 2011. WHO recommends external surveillance reviews every 3 years to ensure countries conduct high quality surveillance activities that can detect diseases targeted for eradication, elimination and control in a timely manner.