The South African government is sending a team comprising one medical doctor and 10 healthcare workers to Sierra Leone to help the country in its fight against the Ebola virus disease.
The team will leave Johannesburg on Friday, January 23, for Freetown where its members will work for eight weeks before being replaced by another team.
Dr Pappie Majuba, the Chief Medical Officer of Right to Care, which recruited and trained the team, said there had been a lot of response from South African healthcare professionals who wanted to work in Sierra Leone.
�The team will be in Sierra Leone for eight weeks and will be working with professionals who are already in the country,� Dr Majuba said.
�When they return to South Africa, another team will be sent to replace them. It�s an ongoing process, and the number of professionals will be determined by the response and need.�
He assured the South African public that the training that had been provided to members of the team would ensure that there was almost no risk of them contracting the disease.
Right to Care is working in conjunction with the South African Department of Health, and the effort is in response to the African Union�s call to member countries to help Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia fight the Ebola scourge that has already killed over 8,300 people in these three countries.
According to figures from the World Health Organisation, Sierra Leone is now seen as epicentre of the disease, with 10,000 reported cases out of 21,000 in the three Ebola-hit countries.
The statistics also show that 678 healthcare workers in the region are known to have contracted Ebola and 382 of them have died.
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