Category: Sierra Leone

Controlling hepatitis B in Sierra Leone

Lisa Breakwell

The leading cause of liver cancer worldwide is hepatitis B virus (HBV). Sierra Leone is thought to have a high percentage, at least 8%, of the population actively infected with HBV. Some studies report that in Sierra Leone, 6% to 11% of pregnant women have active HBV infection, which they can transmit to their babies Read More >

Posted on by Lucy Breakwell, GIDTags ,

President Obama’s Call to Accelerate Battle Against Malaria Builds on Impressive Gains

A home in Zambia using a bed net to prevent mosquito bites and therefore prevent malaria transmission. Bed nets have been shown to reduce malaria illness, severe disease, and death due to malaria in regions where the disease persists.

Malaria is a public health issue that has always been one of our highest priorities. Tweet This President Obama’s call to arms to end malaria worldwide as announced during his recent State of the Union address and the Administration’s request to increase resources for malaria control, underscore the remarkable progress made in the fight against Read More >

Posted on by Laurence Slutsker, MD, MPH, Director of CDC Division of Parasitic Diseases and MalariaTags , , , , , , ,

Mabinty Tarawally — 1-1-7 Hotline Responder

Mabinty Tarawally answers calls at the 117 Call Center in Freetown Sierra Leone.

Mabinty Tarawally has worked as a 1-1-7 Call Center responder for almost a year. When she began, the national call center consisted of seven people who handled 100 calls a day in a small room at the World Health Organization’s Sierra Leone country office. Tarawally joined the 1-1-7 Call Center in September 2014, and has Read More >

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Hard But Fulfilling Work in the Fight Against Ebola

The fruit bat dropped silently from the delivery room ceiling and quickly crawled away as the nurse explained how she mixed the 0.5% chlorine solution used to sterilize the medical instruments. It was a normal day of assessing the infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures of peripheral health units (PHUs) in the rural areas of Read More >

Posted on by Steven Mischler, MS, Physical Scientist, CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)Tags , , , , ,

Working collaboratively to support Ebola response efforts in Sierra Leone

CDC’s FETP partnerships with African nations continue to be leveraged beyond their national borders and for new and unexpected health threats. Dr. Bao-Ping’s blog posted originally on March 31 is being highlighted again as a reminder of how FETPs support global as well as individual nation’s health security. In late November 2014, during the peak Read More >

Posted on by Bao-Ping Zhu, MD, PhD, MS, CDC Epidemiologist and Uganda FETP Resident Advisor1 CommentTags , , , , ,