DAKAR – The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Africa Zone, on Monday urged African communities to work closely toward preventing the spread of the Ebola Virus.
The Director of the societies, Mr Alasan Senghore, who made the call at the Forum on Ebola Communication and Prevention in Dakar, Senegal, urged national and international actors to help scale up preventive measures against the disease.
He also underscored the need for communities, governments, health workers, and partners to work toward a comprehensive containment of the spread of the Ebola Virus to new areas.
“We have organised this forum here because there are three stages in dealing with the Ebola virus.
“The first stage is the prevention and there you have communication with communities, with people, to make them understand how this virus is transmitted and how it can be managed so that we stop the virus from spreading.
“The second part, which is the clinical part, which is the treatment, also there is an aspect of communication where you need to communicate with the people, what they will do to recover and also how you communicate with the population and their families.
“The third part which is the dead body management – when someone dies from Ebola – we know is 10 times more contagious.
“So, how you manage dead bodies, and you know we all have a tradition of how we manage dead bodies. I mean, in Ebola we don’t have to do all those rituals,“ he said.
Senghore also called for proper communication with community members to ease the management of the situation in areas affected by the spread of the virus.
“The house where the person died or the hospital has to be disinfected and also we make sure that the person has a dignified burial and this is what we do as Red Cross.
“In all those three aspects you need to communicate with the people for them to allow you do the job.
“I can give an example. Today as we speak here, in Guinea, we have one of our cars of the Guinea Red Cross which was burnt down, just two days ago, by the villagers.
“And what happened was a misunderstanding of what exactly Ebola is. [eap_ad_1] “That is why this forum is very important because if people don’t understand, they are bound to create problems for even those who are helping them,“ he said.
Dr Mariane Ngoulla, ECOWAS Health Advisor, based in Nigeria, said that people needed to have access to the right information about the Ebola Virus.
He said such knowledge would help in the containment of the spread of the virus.
She, therefore, advised stakeholders to continue to be supportive and to encourage health workers and volunteers caring for infected persons.
NAN reports that the forum was organised by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (NAN)
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