Sierra Leone News

Government of Sierra Leone and Health partners on 19 December 2011 signed the Country Compact which was witnessed by His Excellency the President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma. In His statement, the President thanked the health sector for their commitment to work in a more coordinated manner to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Dr Wondi Alemu, WHO Representative handed over various items worth US$600,000 to Hon Minister of Health & Sanitation, Mrs Zainab Bangura on behalf of the WHO Director General, Dr Margaret Chan and the Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo on 19 March 2012. The Representative stated that WHO has prioritized building capacity of MoHS to take owner-ship of its programmes thereby ensuring strengthened and sustained health system for better health outcomes in the country. He assured WHO's continued support to improve the country's health indicators.

Directorate of Drug and Medical Supplies in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation held a technical stakeholders consensus meeting from 11-12 January 2012 to further deliberate on the draft National Medicines Policy, National Essential Medicines Lists, Standard Treatment Guidelines, and National Formulary. Updating of the Na-tional Medicines Policy and its component documents and their sub-sequent implementation seek to strengthen pharmaceutical care de-livery in the country.

Preparation leading to the implementation of the first round of 2012 polio National Immunisation Days (NIDs) Campaign are on-going in Sierra Leone. Chiefdom level micro-plannings have been completed and compiled at district and national levels; and orientation of civil society groups, training of National Supervisors, Independent Monitors and the media have been done. The trainings would be rolled out to the districts and chiefdom levels with the objective to ensure quality training of vaccinators and to increase participation of community stakeholders.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation launched a partnership for safe medicines initiative on 17 January 2012. The initiative is aimed at ensuring quality, effica-cy and safety of all medicines and promotion of rational use of medicines among healthcare providers and patients.

In this Issue

Central Public Health Reference Laboratory (CPHRL) of Sierra Leone has been provisionally accredited to undertake measles and Yellow Fever (YF) laboratory diagnoses in the country by World Health Organization. The experts from WHO Headquarters and Inter-country Support Team of West Africa awarded the provisional accreditation following intensive bench training on laboratory diagnosis techniques and thorough assessment of the suitability of the laboratory set up.

The Directorate of Disease Prevention and Control (DPC) in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) held its 4th quarter 2011 disease surveillance review meeting from 20-21 January 2012. The meeting examined the status of surveillance activities in the country for the period under review and set agenda for the first quarter of 2012.

Sierra Leone launched the first round of polio National Immunization Days (NIDs) Campaign 2012 in Waterloo on 23 March 2012. Hon Borbor Sawyer, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation launched the campaign, which will run from 23-26 March 2012. Delivering his state-ment, the Hon Deputy Minister said, “the community must ensure that the campaign is successfully delivered to ensure our children are pro-tected from the discomforting challenges of permanent disability”. He further reaffirmed Sierra Leone’s commitment “to remain a strong party to the global polio eradication effort”.

A team of international financial management and health technical experts of the Joint Funding Platform completed a one week scoping mission in Sierra Leone. The team comprised of experts from GAVI, Global Fund World Bank and WHO. The mission was conducted under the leadership of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and facilitated by different levels of WHO.