Medics who fought killer virus have now become colleagues

China-trained Thomas Samba of Sierra Leone - serves as a senior regional director of the country's National Public Health Agency.

He says Chinese health workers have now become his colleagues.

Supported by the Chinese government, he attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in 1999, majoring in general practice, and studied in the city for more than five years.

According to Samba, public health specialists from China stayed in Sierra Leone after the 2014 Ebola outbreak to help the nation - whose citizens have a life expectancy of 50 - build capacity to respond to diseases.

"We are struggling to recover from the Ebola epidemic, which killed nearly 4,000 in the country, and China's assistance is highly appreciated," he says.

It's important for the country of 7 million people to know how to handle emerging outbreaks because infectious diseases like malaria remain major killers, he says.

With China's help, the country is now able to monitor and record the prevalence of diseases, particularly contagious ones, and the number of deaths caused by them.

The country has also begun offering public health education at its only higher-education institute of medicine.

"Two or three more are planned," he says. "We don't know if or when Ebola will come back."

The country is carrying out a post-Ebola recovery program, and providing continuous care for survivors is a crucial part.

"Their situation is miserable, as many lose the ability to work after recovering from the virus," he adds.

Common complications include a slow processing speed, aches, worsening eyesight and lower libido, which were reported by at least 2,000 survivors.

Due to limited knowledge of Ebola, "we have no treatment or cure targeting the virus itself, only supportive measures. That involves a lot of uncertainties", he says.

To assure them of better care, the government offers free healthcare services to all Ebola survivors. Others entitled to free services are pregnant and breast-feeding women, and children under 5 years old.

Samba says there is a vaccine against Ebola that shows great promise but remains very expensive.