(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Sierra Leoneans on Monday marked the passage of one year since the beginning of the region's Ebola outbreak, which has since killed thousands of people in the West African country.
"It was one year of waiting, inconvenience and grieving, but still hoping," Mohamed Tejan Rahman, a Sierra Leonean student and youth advocate, told Anadolu Agency.
Sierra Leone recorded its first confirmed Ebola case € one Victoria Yilla € on May 25 of last year in the country's eastern Kailahun District.
"It has not been easy at all," Abu Bakarr Kamara, another Sierra Leonean, told Anadolu Agency.
"I have lost five family members in the Port Loko district, along with some close friends," he recalled.
Ebola € a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure € has killed more than 11,120 people in West Africa, according to a World health Organization (WHO) status report dated May 20.
In Sierra Leone alone, the virus has claimed at least 3,907 lives.
Kamara said that, even though he was fortunate enough not to have contracted the deadly virus, life had nevertheless been unbearable for him.
"I used to go to the villages in Port Loko to buy food and to trade in Freetown," he recalled.
"But when Ebola became very serious, our government closed the roads and stopped all trading between the capital and the provinces," Kamara said.
"During that period, my business money finished because I had to feed my family," he added. "Now, the roads are open and I have no money to do any trading."
The outbreak has generated what has now become a popular saying by Sierra Leoneans: "With the Ebola outbreak, you're either infected or affected."
-Failure-
Fatmata Sesay, a petty trader on Abacha Street in Freetown's popular Central Business District, criticized Sierra Leone's failure to decisively defeat Ebola.
"Honestly, Ebola has been with us for too long," she told Anadolu Agency.
Sesay pointed to neighboring Liberia, which earlier this month was declared Ebola-free by the WHO.
"I think ours is yet to finish because there are big people [the authorities] who are getting a lot of money from Ebola, so they don't want it [the outbreak] to end," she suggested.
"They will just keep saying there is a new case here and there so that more money will come to their pockets while we suffer," added the trader.
But Sidi Yaya Tunis, director of communications at the National Ebola Response Center, said Ebola still existed in Sierra Leone because people had failed to comply with precautionary instructions.
"Transmission and infections happened at the community level. It is only at the community level that we can end Ebola," he told Anadolu Agency.
Tunis went on to warn Sierra Leoneans against becoming complacent.
"It is crucial that we remain vigilant, committed and involved in this fight," he insisted. "That's the only way we can end Ebola."
Tunis went on to say that, even though there was no specific timeframe as to when Ebola would be eliminated from the country, the virus would soon be a thing of the past.
"If the situation remains as it is now and we don't get any more transmission or infections, we expect to start counting to zero by mid-June € and by the end of July we will be done with Ebola," the official told Anadolu Agency.
"But of course I can't fully guarantee this because it is possible we will see new infections," he was quick to add.
Tunis asserted: "If we are able to hold it to where we are right now, by the end of July, we'll be saying 'Bye-bye Ebola'."
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