Stop Ebola: UNICEF Responds to a Region in Crisis

UNICEF has been on the front lines of the Ebola crisis.

As the terrible and sweeping long-term effects of Ebola continue, UNICEF is on the ground with communities working to build back better. In April, we reported on the work that UNICEF was doing at the height of the Ebola epidemic to address immediate response and long-term recovery.

We celebrated when in May, Liberia officially announced that it had reached zero Ebola cases.

UNICEF was there before the crisis, during the crisis, and will be there long after West Africa moves towards recovery. Here are some of the areas of focus for UNICEF as this stage moves forward.

• Because communities are at the heart of the response, UNICEF has been working closely with them to promote behaviours that help stop transmission, such as safe burials and handwashing. UNICEF engages in dialogue with key members of the community and conducts massive outreach campaigns, and has been going door-to-door, visiting more than two million households.
• UNICEF is supporting community care centres, has helped set up rapid intervention kits and trained health workers in Ebola-specific protocols. UNICEF also provides water and sanitation to Ebola treatment units. While the priority remains to get to zero cases, UNICEF is also helping revitalize non-Ebola health services. UNICEF has provided massive treatment for malaria and is taking part in major measles immunization campaigns.
• UNICEF has helped governments put in place measures to minimize the risk of transmission at schools, including temperature taking and handwashing, and helped train teachers in applying these protocols. UNICEF has supplied soap and buckets for the vast majority of schools in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
• UNICEF is working to improve hygiene and sanitation, promoting handwashing, and distributing hundreds of thousands of bars of soap as well as buckets with taps. Proper hygiene is key to stopping transmission of the Ebola virus.
• UNICEF is delivering supplies that are important for the treatment and care of people who are sick with Ebola, for the protection of health workers and for continued supply of basic services. By mid-April UNICEF had delivered about 8,000 metric tonnes by air and sea to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Links:

• Supporting Ebola survivors on the road to recovery
• Liberia's Victory over Ebola
• Let's Keep Handwashing on the Menu