LifeLine

By Kemo Cham

After more than two decades of waiting, the world has finally got a vaccine for the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The European Commission granted marketing authorization to Ervebo, the vaccine created by the pharmaceutical giant, Merck, last Monday. A day later, the World Health Organization (WHO) also announced its pre-qualification approval.

Ervebo also got a node from the European Medicines Agency last month.

By Kemo Cham

Data from the 2019 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Survey (2019SLDHS) reveals a gradual decline in the country’s fertility rate.

The last decade running from 2008 witnessed a decrease in the fertility rate from 5.1 births per woman to 4.9 births per woman in 2013 and 4.2 births per woman in 2019, according to the data released last week as part of the key indicators in the survey conducted between May and August 2019.

By Kemo Cham

Amidst the euphoria surrounding last Friday’s announcement of Sierra Leone’s stellar performance in the 2020 Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) scorecard, we must save some time to think about lingering issues, notably the country’s poor performance in certain other indicators.

By Kemo Cham

As you would expect, if you were part of our line of work, on September 17 we were inundated with calls in the newsroom, thanks to our lead front page story – ‘Beware! Expired drinks in the market.’

This story was the result of three weeks of investigation.  It took sheer hard work and commitment to grind out a story like this one.

By Hajaratu Kalokoh

It’s 9pm on a rainy August night; a young boy of about nine years old, drenched by the rain and looking uncomfortably cold, is roaming around Lumely with a plate on his head. He is selling cocoanut slice.

At his age, selling for a living is own normalcy, as strange and hard as it is. And perhaps the most striking irony about his situation was the fact that the total cost of the contents on the plate would not even be enough to pay for his medication, if he falls sick.

This is the story of Saidu (not his real name).

By Kemo Cham

With a 20 percent gap in vaccination coverage, Sierra Leone hopes to close it after a mass vaccination campaign slated for next week.

A major highlight of the week-long event is the introduction of the Rubella vaccine into the routine vaccine program.

By Prince J. Musa in Kenema

Residents of Normo Chiefdom in the eastern Kenema district earlier this month celebrated the inauguration of the first ever health center in their chiefdom.

The thirty-bed capacity mini hospital is located in Faama, one of about seven communities in the chiefdom. The facility was constructed with funding from the Norwegian humanitarian group Harald Splass Diacon.