Managing Rumours and Misinformation in West Africa

On 24 September, Solomon Williams, a former adviser on HIV/AIDS, puts on personal protective equipment (a combination of coveralls, heavy duty gloves and boots, goggles, and aprons), at Kenema General Hospital in the city of Kenema in Eastern Province. He and two other colleagues are members of a burial team. They don the gear before spraying (with chlorine) the bodies of people in the morgue who died from Ebola and are awaiting safe burial in Kenema’s cemeteries. To avoid transmission of the disease, people who have died from EVD must be buried by personnel wearing heavy protective clothing and gloves and must be interred immediately by trained case management professionals equipped to properly bury the dead. (Transmission has occurred in communities during funerals and burial rituals. Mourners who have direct contact with the body of the deceased person during burial ceremonies have also played a role in the transmission of the virus.) The members of the burial team are all volunteers. “Nobody called me but I felt upset: My country is broken, I needed to help so we could return to a normal life. Some of us are students or health workers, we’re volunteers to help our people,” Mr. Williams said. On 1 October 2014, Sierra Leone is among countries in West Africa affected by the worst outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in history. As of 16 September, UNICEF estimates that 8.5 million children and young people under the age of 20 live in areas affected by EVD in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, countries where disease transmission is widespread and intense. Of these, 2.5 million are under the age of 5. Preliminary UNICEF estimates (as of 30 September) also indicate that at least 3,700 children in the three countries have lost one or both parents to EVD since the start of the outbreak. By 1 October, 4,080 cases and 2,071 deaths had been confirmed in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. UNICEF remains at the forefront of efforts to respond to and help curtail