Recovery

THE GUARDIAN by Lisa O'Carroll                      Aug. 10, 2015

FREETOWN --Celebrations broke out all over Sierra Leone at the weekend after a ban on public gatherings prompted by the outbreak of Ebola more than a year ago was lifted.

                       People play football on a beach in Freetown. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll for the Guardian

Sierra Leoneans were allowed to go to sporting events and nightclubs, and stay out in restaurants after 9pm, following the decision by the president, Ernest Bai Koroma, to lift the ban on Friday. Some partied hard into the night, while others played football on the beaches and flocked to makeshift cinemas to watch the Manchester United and Arsenal matches....

ebolaresponse.un.org/recovery-conference

The road towards recovery

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have undertaken a remarkable effort to defeat the devastating Ebola outbreak. Thanks to those efforts and the support of the international community, the affected countries have seen a significant decline in the number of new cases. Recovery must now be pursued as part of the goal of “getting to zero and staying at zero,” as the response changes from emergency operations to multi-faceted, long-term support.

To this end, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is hosting an International Ebola Recovery Conference in New York to ensure that recovery efforts go beyond redressing direct development losses to build back better and ensure greater resilience.

The Conference will be held in cooperation with the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in partnership with the African Union, the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank.

Aims of the Conference

Children wash their hands before entering a classroom in Gueckedou - Photo: Jennifer Lazuta

irinnews.org - by Jennifer Lazuta

GUECKEDOU, 13 May 2015 (IRIN) - “Life is back to normal, but everything has changed,” said 30-year-old Yawa Keterine Camara as she slowly stirred a boiling cauldron of sauce outside her mud-brick home in southeastern Guinea. “I live again like before, but nothing is quite the same.”

Camara, who lost her husband to Ebola in November, said her life, like many, many other Guineans, is now divided in two: pre-Ebola and post-Ebola, the before and after.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Médecins Sans Frontières                                     April 13, 2015

Dr Maria Barstch spends her days in the small house that serves as MSF’s Ebola survivor clinic in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The peak of the epidemic may have passed in Sierra Leone but new cases continue to emerge almost every day, and with new cases come new survivors. While they are relieved to have defeated the deadly virus, some survivors are facing other debilitating symptoms of the so called “post-Ebola syndrome.”

                   People wait for a consultation at MSF’s survivor clinic in Freetown. Photo: Sophie McNamara/MSF

...MSF has also opened a survivor clinic in Liberia, housed at the site of MSF’s new pediatric hospital in Monrovia. In both Liberia and Sierra Leone, many survivors have previously sought treatment at local public or private hospitals and clinics but were refused care as soon as staff knew they were Ebola survivors.