How Ebola Destroyed Maternal Health Gains in Sierra Leone

By Finbarr O'Reilly May. 2, 2016

When she went into labor last November, 18-year-old Kema James climbed onto the back of a motorbike taxi in her village in eastern Sierra Leone and rode half an hour to the main government hospital in the nearby city of Kenema.

When her baby was delivered, he was sickly yellow and stricken with sepsis, an ailment caused by bacteria in the blood, and he hung limply in the hands of the hospital staff. He died five days later before he could be named.

The same fate befell 17-year-old Christina Dasama, only her child was stillborn and she suffered excessive bleeding from a vaginal tear during birth. Another woman in the maternity ward bled to death during childbirth the same week.

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