Sexual and gender–based violence (SGBV) is a multifaceted, endemic, and nefarious phenomenon that remains poorly measured and understood, despite greater global awareness of the issue. While efforts to improve data collection methods have increased–including the implementation of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in some countries–the lack of reliable SGBV data remains a significant challenge to developing targeted policy interventions and advocacy initiatives. Using a recent mixed–methods research project conducted by the authors in Sierra Leone as a case study, this paper discusses the current status of SGBV data, challenges faced, and potential research a pproaches.

As COVID-19 spread rapidly during the early months of the pandemic, many communities around the globe anxiously waited for a vaccine. At the start of the pandemic, it was widely believed that Africa would be a significant source of infection, and thus, vaccinating African communities became a primary goal among local and global health authorities. However, when the COVID-19 vaccine became available in March 2021 in Sierra Leone, many people viewed it with scepticism and hesitation. While much literature has focused on access and distribution-related challenges for vaccination in the region, a growing number of studies discuss vaccine hesitancy as driving low vaccine uptake. Shifting attention to understanding the determinants of vaccine hesitancy remains fundamental to increasing vaccination rates, as negative vaccine perceptions tend to delay or prevent vaccination. This study sought to do this by assessing, through semi-structured qualitative interviews, vaccine-related attitudes and experiences of residents of Sierra Leone’s Kono District. In contrast to studies that utilise “knowledge-deficit” models of belief, however, this study drew upon the vaccine anxieties framework (Leach and Fairhead, 2007), which views vaccines as being imbued with personal, historical, and political meaning. Findings suggest that important bodily, social, and political factors, including fear of side effects, the spread of misinformation prompted by poor messaging strategies, and distrust of government and international actors, influenced people’s COVID-19 vaccine attitudes and behaviours. It is hoped that the study’s findings will inform future policies and interventions related to vaccine uptake in Africa and globally.

Lassa fever (LF) virus (LASV) is endemic in Sierra Leone (SL) and poses a significant public health threat to the region; however, no risk factors for clinical LF have been reported in SL. The objective of this study was to identify the risk factors for clinical LF in an endemic community in SL. We conducted a case–control study by enrolling 37 laboratory-confirmed LF cases identified through the national LF surveillance system in SL and 140 controls resided within a one-kilometre radius of the case household. We performed a conditional multiple logistic regression analysis to identify the risk factors for clinical LF. Of the 37 cases enrolled, 23 died (62% case fatality rate). Cases were younger than controls (19.5 years vs 28.9 years, p < 0.05) and more frequently female (64.8% vs 52.8%). Compared to the controls, clinical LF cases had higher contact with rodents (rats or mice) in their households in the preceding three weeks (83.8% vs 47.8%). Households with a cat reported a lower presence of rodents (73% vs 38%, p < 0.01) and contributed to a lower rate of clinical LF (48.6% vs 55.7%) although not statistically significant (p = 0.56). The presence of rodents in the households (matched adjusted odds ratio (mAOR): 11.1) and younger age (mAOR: 0.99) were independently associated with clinical LF.

Rodent access to households and younger age were independently associated with clinical LF. Rodent access to households is likely a key risk factor for clinical LF in rural SL and potentially in other countries within the West African region. Implementing measures to control rodents and their access to households could potentially decrease the number of clinical LF cases in rural SL and West Africa.

This study provides the first investigation into quantities, types, and potential sources of anthropogenic beach litter in Sierra Leone. Beach litter surveys were conducted monthly at four sites over 11 months. A total of 72,901 litter items (1,246 kg dry weight) were categorised. Across all sites, an average of 1,657 items per 100 m (SD = 1,639) and 28.32 kg per 100 m (SD = 37.48) were recorded. Plastics accounted for 70% of the litter by count and 49% by weight. The three most abundant items by count were plastic bottles (25%), plastic caps and lids (13%), and plastic water sachets (12%). By weight, the three most abundant items were plastic bottles (36%), flip-flops (20%), and shoes (9%). Litter amounts decreased from wet to dry season. We provide the following policy recommendations: improving drinking water access and sanitation, waste management, infrastructure and behaviour change.

Sesay draws from three hinterland protests against multinational corporations in the mining and agricultural sectors to examine how global capital influences central/local politics in postcolonial Sierra Leone. Focusing specifically on the mediating role of traditional rulers—a strong legacy of British colonial indirect rule—Sesay argues that hinterland protests not only enable the relative autonomy of rural citizens to (re)negotiate with the state outside existing political arrangements but also challenge the broker authority of these rulers in center/peripheral relations. While some protests form new alignment of interest with traditional rulers, others allow rural citizens to bypass their chiefs to summon the attention of central authorities. In either of these processes, the local constituents question the position of chiefs in the indirect governance system and shape the governing strategies adopted by the central government to rule over the hinterland.

Vaccines for COVID-19 began to be available in Africa from mid-2021. This paper reports on local reactions to the possibility of vaccination in one West African country, Sierra Leone. We show that the history of institutionalisation of vaccine is highly relevant to understanding these reactions. Given lack of testing for the disease, medical authorities could not be sure whether there was a hidden epidemic. In addition, many people associate vaccination with care of children under 5 years, and not adults, and an emphasis on vaccinating the old at first seemed strange and worrying. This paper examines evidence from ethnographic studies in two rural areas selected for varying exposure to Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), supplemented by some interviews in two provincial urban centres, Bo and Kenema. We describe local ideas about vaccination (maklet) and body marking with leaf medicine (tεwi). We asked about attitudes to the idea of COVID-19 vaccination both before and after vaccines were available. A number of reasons were given for scepticism and hesitation. These included lack of experience with vaccines for adults and lack of experience of COVID-19 as a severe disease. Medical evidence suggests the vaccination protects against serious illness, but local people had their own views about control of infection, based both recent experience (notably EVD) and the history and institutionalisation of vaccination and public health measures in Sierra Leone more broadly.

This article provides a narrative about archival research experience in Sierra Leone as the coronavirus outbreak spread globally in early 2020. Coincidentally, the research concerned the country’s history of epidemics since 1787, when Freetown, its first city, accommodated freed Blacks repatriated from Britain and the Americas. As Sierra Leone prepared for another disease outbreak after Ebola in 2014, leaving or staying in Freetown (after seven months into a ten-month Fulbright US Scholar term) had health and research outcomes at stake. Historicizing the pandemic while engaging personal/social memory in historical accounts, the article highlights containment measures adopted against epidemics/pandemics across time.

The International Law Book Facility (ILBF) ships donated law books to organisations across the globe which require good quality legal publications. Since its inception in 2005 it has delivered over 80,000 books to more than 250 organisations in 56 countries. Here Katrina Crossley, the Chief Executive of the ILBF, explains why it is so important and how it works, giving some examples of how the project has eased the way for people training in the law in Africa. The importance of law librarians in all of this is discussed too. Katrina also outlines how ILBF has worked with BIALL in the course of its law librarian training schemes in Sierra Leone and Ghana, and will continue to do so in other countries in Africa as this is expanded.

Beginning in 1900, colonial railway departments in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria began turning to the Caribbean for skilled labor instead of hiring African workers. When West Indian railway workers began to arrive in West Africa, Africans were indignant, and they voiced their objections in newspapers. West Indians sometimes responded to these grievances with calls for racial unity, yet their appeals were inflected with colonial hierarchies. Such exchanges were centered on railway jobs, but they were also embedded in larger discussions about empire, race, and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. I argue that these exchanges reveal the significance of colonial hierarchies and diasporic tensions in the intellectual history of pan-Africanism in early twentieth-century West Africa. The article draws on newspapers and archival research from West Africa, the Caribbean, and the UK.

Vaccination against hepatitis B virus (HBV) is effective at preventing vertical transmission. Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea are hyperendemic West African countries; yet, childhood vaccination coverage is suboptimal, and the determinants of incomplete vaccination are poorly understood. We analyzed national survey data (2018–2020) of children aged 4–35 months to assess complete HBV vaccination (receiving 3 doses of the pentavalent vaccine) and incomplete vaccination (receiving <3 doses). Statistical analysis was conducted using the complex sample command in SPSS (version 28). Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify determinants of incomplete immunization. Overall, 11,181 mothers were analyzed (4,846 from Sierra Leone, 2,788 from Liberia, and 3,547 from Guinea). Sierra Leone had the highest HBV childhood vaccination coverage (70.3%), followed by Liberia (64.6%) and Guinea (39.3%). Within countries, HBV vaccination coverage varied by socioeconomic characteristics and healthcare access. In multivariate regression analysis, factors that were significantly associated with incomplete vaccination in at least one country included sex of the child, Muslim mothers, lower household wealth index, <4 antenatal visits, home delivery, and distance to health facility vaccination (all p < 0.05). Understanding and addressing modifiable determinants of incomplete vaccination will be essential to help achieve the 2030 viral hepatitis elimination goals.

When COVID-19 reached Sierra Leone, the government responded by implementing strict containment measures. While the effectiveness of such actions has been debated, the socioeconomic and political implications were undeniable. This qualitative study reveals that people suffered tremendously from economic insecurity, strains on social relationships, and civil rights violations, prompting many to perceive the COVID-19 pandemic as worse than the 2014–15 Ebola epidemic. These hardships have driven distrust of the government, which threatens continuing mitigation efforts. Using a feminist global health security frame, which recenters the protection of vulnerable individuals in relation to the state, we call for more contextually-relevant, civil society-informed pandemic responses.