Sierra Leone is projected to grow in 2016 by 4.3 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from a contraction of 21 percent last year with the resumption of iron ore mining and the end of Ebola, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a statement released on March 29.
A team from the IMF visited Sierra Leone from March 15 -29 to conduct the fifth review under the Extended Credit Facility programme (ECF) and at the end of the visit issued the statement, disclosing that “Sierra Leone’s economy is recovering from the twin shocks of the Ebola virus epidemic and the halt in iron-ore mining. Economic momentum is building again, and GDP is expected to grow by 4.3 percent this year from a contraction of 21 percent in 2015,” the statement reads.
“Shandong Iron and Steel Group (SISG) have resumed iron ore production and have shipped over 10 shiploads since the start of operation in February. But the fall in commodity prices and drop in demand from China are major challenges to the economy.
Inflation was 8.5 percent in December 2015, “but a small up-tick is expected in 2016 due to the depreciation of the Leone.” The buying rate of the Dollar currently is Le 5,887.16 and selling rate is Le 6,006.09 according to the Bank of Sierra Leone weekly exchange rate. Exchange rate on the black market is Le 6,100 buying rate and Le 6,500 selling rate.

The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa devastated that region through 2014 and 2015, with more than 11,000 dead, putting the rest of the world on alert and spurring many nations to lend support to the fight against the hemorrhagic fever.

As part of the Canadian government’s contribution against the epidemic, a total of 79 CAF health care and support staff deployed to Sierra Leone in three different rotations from December 2014 to May 2015. The mission, dubbed Operation SIRONA, sent personnel to the UK’s Kerrytown Treatment Unit. The facility wasn’t tasked with caring just for local patients, but rather with caring for the local and international health care workers who had been exposed to the Ebola virus.

Sekou Camara, 20, was among the first to volunteer to conduct safe and dignified burials with the Red Cross Society of Guinea when the Ebola outbreak began two years ago. Despite his young age, Sekou Camara dedicated himself to fighting Ebola, acquiring valuable experience along the way. When the outbreak was declared over, Sekou was ready for a new challenge and turned his sights to surveillance activities.

Volunteering became a passion for Sekou five years ago when he joined the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. An orphan, Sekou grew up with his grandmother, and because of their modest living conditions, was forced to end his education after completing primary school. The local committee of the Red Cross in Kaloum became his second home where he distinguished himself through his diligence to volunteer service. “I consider the Red Cross as my second family because there I found the love and warmness of a home. It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I bring my modest contributions to relief efforts,” says Sekou with his usual smile.

Last year, as the Ebola epidemic appeared to be contained, Bill Gateswarned, "There is a significant chance that an epidemic of a substantially more infectious disease will occur sometime in the next 20 years."

For more than a month in 2015, a multidisciplinary team including infectious disease and critical care physicians and nurses, respiratory therapists and other specialists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) treated a critically ill patient who had contracted Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone. A new report by the medical caregivers details the clinical course of the 34-year-old American healthcare worker who was admitted to the NIH Special Clinical Studies Unit on day 7 of his illness. The patient survived his illness with intensive supportive care, despite multi-organ failure.

In slums, buildings are often so densely packed that many are cut off from streets and pathways. This creates a literal roadblock to much-needed public resources.

“In South Africa, governments will often say that informal settlements are too dense to install adequate services,” Charlton Ziervogel, deputy director at theCommunities Organization Resource Centre, a Cape Town-based slum advocacy and support NGO, tells CityLab. “So you’ll find municipalities that install toilets, but only at the edge of a settlement, because they perceive that there is no space inside.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new app this month, called WHO Zika App, which offers medical reference information about the Zika virus. The app is specifically designed for health care workers and responders, but can also be used by the general public.

Zika is a disease that is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Symptoms of this virus include mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and a headache, according to WHO, but the disease also comes with a complication. Researchers have found an increasing body of evidence linking Zika virus and microcephaly, a condition in which a baby is born with a significantly smaller head than expected.

Masaka — Health experts have opened investigations into the death of four people suspected to have succumbed to the contagious Ebola -like symptoms in Masaka District.

The first suspicious death was reported late last month from Kasaka parish in Buwunga Sub-county, after one person identified as Wilberforce Ssenkubuge died upon showing strange signs related to the deadly haemorrhagic fever- Ebola.

In a meeting held at the sensi hub in 62 sir samuel lewis road, Arberdeen; the project cordinator Mr. Moses explain the important of the light in proving energy to those who can not afford the commercial energy supplies for their homes and charging of cell phones, he said this light would be available in the country on a soft loan basis. The consumers would purchase the light in a year period given with a small amount the user would be able to pay. 

The green solar project is focussing in area were the country electricity would not be able to reach and help those spot with centres for easy purchasing of the solar light.

A woman has died of Ebola in Liberia, months after the West African nation was declared free of the deadly virus and weeks after neighboring Guinea also recorded a new flare-up, health officials said on Friday.

"A young lady in her early thirties died of Ebola yesterday at the Redemption Hospital," a senior health ministry official said. A hospital worker also confirmed the woman had tested positive for the disease.

(Reporting by Alphonso Toweh; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Larry King)

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Ebola survivors could be carrying live Ebola virus in their eyes. Many of them are going blind, but in fear of the epidemic's resurgence, hardly anyone is doing anything about it.

One morning, in Atlanta, Georgia, Ebola survivor and infectious disease physician Ian Crozier walked up to his bathroom mirror to brush his teeth and did a double take. His formerly blue left eye had turned green.

He’d been experiencing strange ophthalmological symptoms for weeks, and a diagnostic test revealed the culprit: the Ebola virus, relentlessly stalking him. Though undetectable in his blood, the virus had been squatting for months in the anterior chamber of the eye, replicating without spurring an immune response. Now, Crozier was losing his vision.

Carlos Lopes. File Photo: UNECA

Migration, climate change and what's been called "green" industrialization are just some of the issues topping the agenda when African economic and finance ministers gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, beginning this Thursday.

The conference is part of the wider events for the first African Development Week organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, known as the ECA, and the African Union.

Carlos Lopes is the ECA Executive Secretary at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

Ernest Chicho asked him about the background for the week and what to expect.

Duration: 4'28"

see more on: http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2016/03/green-industrialization-part-of-focus-for-african-development-week/#.Vv0A1tIrJdh