This SSHAP Case Study explores the effective implementation of a community health worker (CHW) programme during the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic within a collapsed health system in Port Loko district, Sierra Leone. Fear, misinformation, and distrust meant that a comprehensive community-based response was needed to support effective disease screening and referral to Ebola treatment facilities. Partners in Health (PIH), a health-care non-governmental organisation (NGO) founded in the USA, delivered a CHW programme that provided 250,000 people affected by Ebola in Port Loko district with health system services and linkages required to combat Ebola.
UNICEF/Torrecilla
In August 2014 in Sierra Leone, an outreach worker holds a poster bearing information on the symptoms of Ebola virus disease (EVD) and best practices to help prevent its spread, in Freetown, the capital. The posters are among those UNICEF has produced for distribution as part of social mobilization efforts. The workers T-shirt bears the UNICEF logo. As of 4 August, a total of 1,711 cases, including 932 deaths, had been attributed to EVD in the four West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has borne 691 of these cases (576 confirmed, 49 probable and 66 suspected), including 286 deaths.
