Hot Spot Busters, a Community Focused Intervention in Sierra Leone
The “Hotspot Busters Initiative” was aimed at reducing and eliminating the spread of EVD in hotspot areas as soon as cases appeared. It became a key element of UNICEF’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. UNICEF and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), in partnership with the Health for all Coalition (HFAC), a local community-based organization with a network of social mobilizers in the field, implemented this intervention at the ward level across the country.
How does Hotspot Busting work?
A hotspot was defined by HFAC as ‘any two suspected cases from a community’.
The activities of this initiative aimed to:
• Sensitize Paramount Chiefs and traditional leaders on the need for intensification of the EVD response in the hotspot communities, including dissemination of chiefdom by-laws on EVD;
• Undertake intense door to door community sensitization;
• Provide key messages via SBCC materials;
• Facilitate community referrals; and,
• Report on suspected cases.
These brief case studies reflect the contribution of numerous partners in the social mobilization pillar co-chaired by UNICEF and the Ministry of Health
