Ebola Virus Disease-Induced Teenage Pregnancy and the Health Support System in the Masuba Community, Bombali District, Sierra Leone

Abstract

Teenage pregnancy continues to be one of the social barriers to the human resource development of Sierra Leone. It limits the educational progress of the girl child. The situation was a national concern in the year 2015 immediately after the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) out-break as teenage pregnancy of school going children reached its record highest in Sierra Leone, and demanded a change in the Education policy to encourage their class attendance and sitting to public examinations. This research was, therefore, conducted in one worst-hit community in the Bombali District, the Masuba community which has a Government supported Maternal and Child Health Center that could recount better for the mishap so that useful information to support Government to respond to the menace would be generated. To ensure this, the research employed a desk research in which information contained in the records of the Masuba Health Center, which was the only functioning health facility in the Masuba Community that responded to the affairs of pregnant and lactating mothers was collected. The research sought to ascertain the surge in teenage pregnancies, number delivering at the health facility complications at their deliveries, Government’s intervention on family planning in the health facility occasioned by the EVD outbreak in the Masuba community. The research found out that there was a marked increase in the number of teenage pregnancies in the Masuba community, with such reduced complications in the middle period of the outbreak; teenage mother deliveries were overwhelmingly safe with only a few referrals; Government Family Planning interventions during the EVD outbreak were the non-injectables, non-invasive, and sensitization, while that the pre and post-EVD outbreak period were counseling, pregnancy test, alongside with the injectable, pills, condoms, and invasive methods.