WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
SIERRA LEONE
PRESS RELEASE
Lassa death prompts set up of new isolation unit for Freetown
5 September 2000
A Lassa fever isolation unit is to be set up in Freetown after the capital witnessed another
death from the disease last week.
The victim, a man from Kenema, arrived in Freetown with fever. He was diagnosed using
clinical examination and liver function tests by doctors in the outpatient department of
Connaught Hospital, but was advised to return to Kenema, where Sierra Leone’s only Lassa
fever treatment unit is sited, for treatment. However he died before he was able to travel.
“We are not saying this patient could have been saved given the speed of his death. But it is
important that we establish a treatment unit in Freetown so that cases like this can be started
on the treatment quickly,” says Dr Abdul Rahman Wurie, WHO’s disease prevention and
control adviser and member of the Emergency Health Management Team’s newly established
Lassa Taskforce
The new isolation unit will be sited at the ministry of health’s Waterloo Clinic in buildings
which used to house the Western District’s health management team, now relocated to
Freetown.
“The ideal would have been Connaught Hospital,” says Dr Wurie, “But there is no space there
and Waterloo is 20 miles drive on a good road from Freetown and has the basic facilities
required for the purpose.”
A number of agencies have come forward to help provide the new unit with trained staff and
equipment.
Two ministry of health doctors and six nurses from Freetown are to join the Lassa Fever
Treatment Centre in Kenema for an intensive hands-on course on managing the disease. Run
by British health NGO Merlin, the centre is the only specialist Lassa fever unit in Africa and
staff are among those with the greatest experience of treating the disease in the world.
While Merlin has agreed to sponsor the new staff’s training, WHO will support the trainees
financially during the course, supplying transport and per diem. WHO will also provide
continued technical assistance once they are established at the Waterloo site.
To establish the unit itself, Médicins Sans Frontières Belgium has agreed to provide beds,
mattresses and bedding, while UNICEF has promised disinfectants and utensils and other
day-to-day equipment. WHO will give the protective equipment essential for barrier nursing
with extra gloves and other furniture coming from the UN AIDS programme. Irish NGO Goal is
being approached to help set up disposal facilities for clinical waste at the new unit.
Cases of Lassa fever usually peak in March with the dry season harvest, which allows rats to
flourish, and drop away with the onset of the rainy season. But this year cases have not fallen
and the Kenema Centre still treating over 50 patients a month.
One explanation for the increase are the increasingly overcrowded accumulations of
displaced people who have less ability to protect either food supplies or their own exposure to
rats. But, more positive, it may also be the result of intensive public awareness work done by
the ministry of health, WHO and Merlin which has improved the ability of health workers to
identify and refer cases.
Editors’ Notes
 Lassa fever is a highly infectious rat-borne disease that is also transmitted person to
person. It is endemic to certain areas of West Africa. Sierra Leone’s Lassa Fever Belt
covers parts of the Eastern provinces where the Mastomys rat, the only species to carry
the disease, can be found.

The Kenema Lassa fever unit was set up originally by the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 1996 The first place to define the disease and identify effective
treatment, it is now operated by Merlin with funds from the European Community
Humanitarian Office, the US Office of Foreign Development Aid and the Dutch
Department for International Development.

Infection is caused by exposure to rat urine even when dried. It can be passed by direct
contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva of an infected person.

Best precautions are to secure all food in rat-proof containers, keep living areas clean and
free from rubbish, wash hands frequently with soap if caring for a person with fever, keep
a cat in the house to discourage rats, and never touch a dead rat with bare hands.

Symptoms of Lassa fever last between one and four weeks and range from mild
symptoms to a severe fever with fluctuating temperature, headache; sore throat; cough;
nausea; diarrhoea and vomiting; aching muscles; and pains in the back, chest and
abdomen. Early treatment is crucial to increases chances of survival and appropriate
drugs are available in Sierra Leone.
For further information, please contact:
World Health Organization
Ph:
Fx:
Email:
+232 22 22 31 88
+232 22 22 73 13
who@sierratel.sl
Dr William Aldis: WHO Representative
Mobile: +232 23 50 05 63
Email: aldisw@yahoo.com
Dr Abdul Rahman Wurie: Disease Prevention and Control Officer
Mobile: 232 23 50 10 73
Email: wuriefs@hotmail.com