Photo: WHO

On November 6, 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Sierra Leone ebola free, joining Liberia in the free zone and leaving Guinea with one case. The emergency in Sierra Leone and Liberia has ended, but the ebola crisis is not yet over.  As long as one country is carrying the disease and a vaccine has not yet been found, all countries are at risk.  I have written before that ebola, like all other diseases perpetually killing people in that region, will con...

In a region of extreme poverty and underdevelopment, religious occasions such as Ramadan and Christmas are usually the only times that most people enjoy the joy of life rightly embedded in these festivities. Christmas and Ramadan in Sierra Leone are not only about the religious meanings of these events; they are also a social opportunity for the haves to share with the have-nots, for families to reconcile their differences, and for neighbours to entertain each other through parties an...

The ebola emergency in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia has led these countries to temporarily close schools in order to manage the spread of the disease. It has been estimated that the closure of schools affects estimably five million children in the region, and fears that some of these children might not return to school after the emergency have caused some NGOs to call for the reopening of schools in the region. As founder of the Jeneba Project Inc. and someone who has provi...

One of the greatest pleasures of traveling around the U.S. on public transportation to give presentations and attend fundraisers for the Jeneba Project Inc., a nonprofit I founded to provide educational opportunities to the children of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea after more than a decade of civil war in that region, is the privilege of talking to ordinary Americans about these countries and the work we do. In my experience, when Americans are interested in an issue, they a...

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has plagued mostly Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. The most recent estimate is that the disease has killed nearly 5,000 people and continues to spread exponentially. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine has found that at current rate of infestation, the toll could reach 20, 000 by November, if more robust actions are not taken to curb the disease. The question people are asking is why has it been so difficult to contain a disease that is no...