DEC member agencies’ prevention work, such as safe burials and awareness raising, in response to the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone is “impressive” but must continue to adapt to the changing situation in West Africa, an independent review of the DEC response has found.
The Ebola Crisis Appeal Response Review conducted in March 2015 by the Institute of Development Studies for the DEC found that member agencies utilised their existing networks and relationships in Sierra Leone to scale up programmes after the Ebola crisis appeal launched in October 2014.
Aid agencies used their experience of community-based public health to launch large-scale awareness campaigns, combining their long-term knowledge with new interventions – such as graveyard management, contact tracing and providing food and supplies to quarantined households – to “adapt quickly” to the unprecedented emergency.
