Ministry of Defence
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First British Ebola treatment facility opens in Sierra Leone
A new British Ebola treatment facility opened to patients yesterday in Kerry Town, near the Sierra Leone capital Freetown.
The Kerry Town complex includes an 80 bed treatment centre to be managed by Save the Children and a 12 bed centre staffed by British Army medics specifically for health care workers and international staff responding to the Ebola crisis. The 12 bed facility is expected to expand to 20 beds in the New Year.
The construction of the treatment facility was funded by the Department for International Development and designed and overseen by British Army Royal Engineers. It is the first of 6 centres to be built by Britain in a bid to contain, control and defeat Ebola in Sierra Leone.
The scale of the Ebola crisis has left Sierra Leone with a severe shortage of beds to treat Ebola patients. The WHO estimates that there are currently just 326 treatment beds in Sierra Leone.
The site also hosts an Ebola testing laboratory run by British scientists to accurately diagnose patients. The lab began operating last week and has doubled the country’s lab capacity.
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