Anthony Banbury visits an Ebola Treatment Unit in Sierra Leone

The Head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury, visited on Friday (12 December 2014) an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) outside the Sierra Leone capital, where a response surge is being launched.
Storyline:
The Head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury, today (12 December) visited an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) outside the Sierra Leone capital, where a response surge is being launched.
The PTS1, ETU is being run by the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and the Sierra Leone armed forces (ARSLAF.)
After a one hour drive Banbury and his team visited the installations and were briefed on its activities.
Sierra Leone, one of the three hardest-hit countries, and in recent weeks the outbreak has intensified.
A surge in the response is being launched this week.
SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Banbury, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER):
"We need to put in place a big surge to get those case numbers down, and we've been working on implementing that surge on the last week. I came yesterday to see how that's going, how the preparations are. It's going to start in two days, and to see what more UNMEER can do."
The SRSG congratulated the Sierra Leonian government on the implementation of the ETU.
SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Banbury, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER):
"It's one of the few ETUs anywhere in the region that is run by the people in the country. They have very good outcomes, good survival rates; it's working very well. It's impressive."
Banbury's welcomed Time magazine's recognition of the Ebola responders as "Person of the Year."
SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Banbury, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER):
"I was really pleased that Time magazine acknowledged really the incredible work that has been done by frontline Ebola responders. Particularly I think the health care workers deserve the greatest appreciation and respect. In some way acknowledging my contribution I think it was really much more an acknowledgment of the contribution of the United Nations and UNMEER included, but not just UNMEER, the UN agencies and funds and programmes."
Ishmail Duncamara, and ETU worker spoke about the stigma associated with Ebola in Sierra Leone.
SOUNDBITE (English) Ishmail Duncamara, ETU Support Staff:
"This place is an Ebola centre. People at the Ebola centre are killed. So, people really do not accept us at home at all. They drive us away. So, because of clemency we volunteer for this job, not because of the salary scale, but we want to save our people."
After the visit to the ETU, the UN official met with Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma
at his office where they discussed the surge.
To date, close to 18,000 cases of Ebola have been reported in West Africa with more than 6,300 deaths, according to WHO, and Sierra Leone now has the highest total number of reported cases with 7,897 cases reported to date.
Global Ebola Response Website