The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that it had uncovered a “grim scene” in the diamond-rich area.
The WHO added in a statement released on Wednesday, December 10 that within the space of 11
days in Kono, “two teams buried 87 bodies, including a nurse, an ambulance driver, and a janitor drafted into removing bodies as they piled up”.
The UN agency’s response team also found 25 other people who had died of the disease piled up in a secluded section of the local hospital.
Olu Olushayo, a member of the WHO’s Ebola response team, said:
“Our team met heroic doctors and nurses at their wits’ end, exhausted burial teams and lab techs, all doing the best they could but they simply ran out of resources and were overrun with gravely ill people.”
Authorities in Kono had earlier decided to put the district on “lockdown” for two weeks after a sharp rise in cases of the disease was witnessed.
Sierra Leone has now overtaken Liberia as the country with the largest number of confirmed Ebola cases.
