TALKING POINTS FOR URGENT TELEPHONE CALLS BY WE THE DIASPORA TO OUR RELATIVES AND FRIENDS IN SIERRA LEONE To say the scare caused by the spread of the Ebola Virus (“EBV”) has reached crisis level in SL would be an understatement. And the horrible-looking outer protective wear & gear, worn from head-to-toe by all levels of Health Workers, though essential for their protection, plus the stunning loss of health personnel clearly adds to the gloom surrounding the deadly EBV contagion in Sierra Leone. To help reduce this fear and assist in containing the EBV contagion, we have prepared this FACT SHEET to help guide telephone conversations with Sierra Leone residents initiated by we all in the Diaspora and which we recommend. We also respectfully suggest participation in local radio programs to reach more of our people. We are respectfully asking every Diaspora Sierra Leonean as well as all concerned friends of Sierra Leone of every nationality whatsoever and wherever located to please place as many telephone calls as possible, if they can, to relatives, friends and acquaintances resident in Sierra Leone with basic facts about and surrounding the EBV contagion. We also respectfully ask every caller to encouraging those they telephone to timely spread these facts to their own friends and relatives in-country. We believe this approach will help calm the situation thus helping to make containing the EBV contagion far more manageable. EBV is a crisis the require all hands on deck. Thank you. EBV FACTS TALKING POINTS 1. A person catches EBV by merely touching an infected person or coming in contact otherwise with such an infected person who is vomiting, sneezing, bleeding internally or experiencing diarrhea or by coming in contact with such infected person’s body fluids such as blood, saliva, sweat, urine, semen or feces/stool. 2. Such person would already be acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus and would have contacted the EBV either from another infected person or by eating infected bush meat such as bats, monkeys, babus or any other infected bush animal or coming in contact with their body fluids. 3. A person infected with EBV is not contagious until he or she is gravely ill with such EBV symptoms as fever, sweating, diarrhea, vomiting, sneezing and coughing. Once these symptoms appear in an infected person, EBV is highly contagious. Please report to the health authorities before any of these symptom appears in you, in case you feel you had been exposed to people with such symptoms. 4. Persons likely to be infected by the EBV are close family members, neighbors, friends and health workers who help infected people get well again or persons who help to wash the corpse of infected people or bury them according to local customs. 5. If you feel that you have touched an infected sick person or come in physical contact with that person or his or her sweat, blood, vomit, urine, feces/stool or semen, or helped in preparing a corpse for burial or helped in burying any infected dead person, the first thing you must do is promptly report to the health authorities so they may test you to determined whether the EBV has entered your own body. 6. Health workers in Sierra Leone today are heavily assisted by well- trained international personnel and are in a far better position to help you beat the infection by any of our our traditional medicine men. 7. Health workers also die from the infection because they work very long hours and eventually get tired. That’s when the infection enters their bodies because of some oversight, ever so slight. 8. Because EBV quickly kills a very large percentage of those with the EBV infection, promptly reporting to the authorities for an examination after exposure to the virus is the best chance you will have to save your own life. Do not wait for the symptoms to develop. 9. This is so because the sooner the infection is discovered, the great the chances of effective treatment; and once the infection has caused the infected person to get a fever, sweat, cough, suffer diarrhea, bleed internally, vomit and sneeze it is very difficult to cure the EBV infection. 10. It may take up to 21 days for the EBV infection to show itself outwardly in such symptoms as diarrhea, fever, sweating, coughing or sneezing by the infected person. But some infected persons have experienced symptoms as early as 2 days. The average has been between 5 and 8 days. 11. Thus the sooner one reports to the authorities after exposure to an infected person or body fluids, the greater the chances of healing. 12. The Government of Sierra Leone has nothing to do with the spread of the EBV. All it has done is to help cure the infected to the best of its abilities with increasing international help. 13. Liberia and Guinea also are suffering from the EBV contagion. And their governments are also trying to do their best to heal the infected with increasing international support. 14. Other African countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa), The Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and Sudan have also suffered from the EBV virus beginning in 1976. 15. An infected Liberian recently died in Lagos, Nigeria. Thus Sierra Leone is not the only one suffering from the EBV. Please let me know if you have any questions. Respectfully submitted, JL
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:30:21 +0000
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